Tens of millions of women have disappeared from the workforce in India over the last decade. That’s before Covid-19 worsened female employment prospects by displacing another 6.7 million from their jobs. So how did India — which until the pandemic hit was one of the world’s fastest-growing large economies — fail to increase women’s participation in line with that expansion?
In a new book, economist Shrayana Bhattacharya has used the career of Bollywood leading-man Shah Rukh Khan to emphasise the barriers that prevent women from stepping outside the home and into the workplace.