India’s skilling challenge for women is no longer simply about whether they can access training. It is about whether those skills can translate into formal employment, sustainable livelihoods and long-term economic participation.
A new NITI Aayog report, Reimagining Skilling for Viksit Bharat@2047, has highlighted the scale of the gap. It found that only 3% of women are in formal employment, while 71% are either engaged in informal work or fall within the NEET category, referring to those not in education, employment or training.
The findings point to a structural problem within India’s skilling and employment ecosystem. Training opportunities may be expanding, but the systems surrounding women’s participation, including mobility, safety, childcare, caregiving responsibilities and access to suitable jobs, continue to limit the conversion of skills into formal economic opportunities.
The problem begins before employment
NITI Aayog’s report suggests that for many women, the barriers to workforce participation begin well before the job search.
Around 75% of women surveyed preferred skilling programmes located within a 5-kilometre radius. The report also found a strong preference for part-time learning, reflecting the need to balance education and training with household and caregiving responsibilities.
For women living in smaller towns, peri-urban areas or communities with restrictive mobility norms, distance can therefore become a significant economic barrier. A training programme may technically be available, but still remain inaccessible if reaching it requires long travel, unsafe transport or extended absence from home.
The report uses the example of a woman identified as Sangeeta, whose ambition to acquire skills and earn supplementary income is constrained by family responsibilities, geography and the practical difficulty of travelling beyond her immediate neighbourhood.
This highlights an important distinction: access to a training centre does not necessarily mean access to opportunity.
Flexibility is becoming an employment issue
The demand for part-time learning also reveals a broader issue facing employers and policymakers.
Women who cannot commit to fixed, full-day schedules may need alternative pathways into employment. NITI Aayog’s findings indicate that rigid models can exclude precisely the workers whom skilling programmes are designed to reach.
The report therefore calls for a more flexible architecture that connects learning with work while recognising the different circumstances of learners.
Its broader approach includes outcome-linked, industry-backed programmes, stronger apprenticeship pathways and mechanisms that allow people to move between education, skilling and employment more easily.
Informal work offers flexibility, but limits economic mobility
The high proportion of women in informal work also underlines the trade-off many women face.
Informal and home-based work can offer greater flexibility around household responsibilities. However, such livelihoods can come with limited access to capital, weak market linkages, fewer social-security protections and restricted opportunities for business expansion.
This creates a difficult cycle. Formal employment may not provide the flexibility women need, while informal employment may provide flexibility without the income security or progression associated with formal work.
The result is not simply lower workforce participation. It can also mean lower earnings, weaker career progression and reduced economic independence.
India’s skilling system needs to measure what happens after training
One of the report’s most important messages is that training numbers alone are an inadequate measure of success.
NITI Aayog argues for a shift towards employment outcomes, entrepreneurship viability and sustained livelihoods. Its proposed skilling architecture seeks to create stronger connections between education, skills, apprenticeships, employers and lifelong learning.
The report proposes several interventions specifically aimed at improving women’s participation. These include Sakhi Booths as trusted local awareness points, Community Women Circles for mentorship and peer support, a women-centric digital platform, and Surakshit Saathi, designed around safe accommodation and affordable transport near industrial and training hubs.
The intent is significant: rather than asking women to overcome every barrier individually, the system itself would need to become more accessible.
A wider workforce challenge
The findings on women sit within a broader concern identified by NITI Aayog around India’s transition from education and training to employment.
The report identifies five major learner and workforce segments and proposes a new skilling architecture designed to link education, training, employment and entrepreneurship more closely. Its recommendations include earlier exposure to employability and trade skills, stronger industry participation, expanded apprenticeships, digital skill passports and skills-first hiring.
The government has also clarified that the report’s 8.7 crore NEET figure for people aged 15 to 29 should not be interpreted as unemployment. The NEET category includes people engaged in domestic duties, voluntary work or household enterprises, among other groups, and therefore cannot simply be added to India’s unemployment numbers.
That distinction is particularly important when interpreting the women-specific finding as well. The 71% figure captures a combination of informal employment and people outside education, employment and training. It is therefore better understood as a measure of limited formal economic integration, rather than a direct measure of unemployment.
The formal workforce remains the bigger prize
For India’s Viksit Bharat ambition, the question is ultimately whether the country can move women from fragmented participation towards productive and sustainable economic engagement.
NITI Aayog’s own assessment acknowledges that artificial intelligence, automation, the green transition and changing global supply chains are reshaping the nature of work. The report argues that India’s skilling ecosystem must therefore prepare workers not only for current jobs but also for emerging opportunities.
For women, however, future-ready skills will have limited impact if the surrounding employment infrastructure remains inaccessible.
A woman may have the qualification, the training and the willingness to work. If the job is too far from home, the commute is unsafe, childcare is unavailable or the working hours cannot accommodate caregiving responsibilities, the skill may never become an income opportunity.
That is the central gap exposed by the NITI Aayog report.
India’s next skilling challenge is therefore not simply to train more women. It is to build an employment ecosystem in which women can actually use those skills.
Also read: Viksit Workforce for a Viksit Bharat
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