Enhancing Women’s Employment Opportunities through Skilling

According to ILO’s Flagship Report in 2021, there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of digital labour market platforms over the last decade, with India accounting for 8% of the world’s labour market platforms. Given India’s relatively young population, rapid urbanization, and widespread adoption of smartphones, the platform labour market is at the forefront of the digital technology revolution. The growth of the platform sector has quickened in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, unlocking new job opportunities while lowering job search costs. However, in order to take full advantage of jobs in this sector, workers need to be not only made aware of the work opportunities in the platform sector, but they also need to have skills that align with the nature of work on platforms.

This research will utilise individual-level data from skill centres to understand who takes up these skilling programs, what skills are chosen by participants who enrol themselves for training, who gets placed, what is the take up of jobs offered, what factors determine women’s occupation and skilling preferences and ascertain the impact of skilling on employment opportunities in the digital labour market. This study seeks to analyse whether providing additional skills or upskilling to women can help in improving their employment opportunities and earnings or not, with a focus on job opportunities available in the platform sector. This analysis will help understand the possible gender gaps in the skilling ecosystem. It will also suggest policy measures to address these gaps.