With a ratio of 70.9 per cent, Mizoram is leading among all Indian states where the female-to-male workers’ ratio is concerned, especially when it comes to occupying senior-level jobs. More women in the state as working as legislators, senior officials and managers, according to the latest additional data provided in the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), July 2020-June 2021.
In fact, the survey reveals that all Northeastern states, except Nagaland, have a strong representation of women in senior-level jobs. For Sikkim, the ratio is 48.2 per cent, and Manipur stands at 45.1 per cent—making Mizoram, Sikkim and Manipur the top three states in the country. Other states from around the nation that performed well and made it to the top five are Meghalaya (44.8 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (43 per cent). The all-India ratio for female-to-male workers is at 22.8 per cent.
The survey also found that there are a number of states and Union Territories where the ratio is sharply lower than the national average. These states include Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Punjab, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Dadra Nagar Haveli as well as Daman and Diu had the lowest ratio at 1.8 per cent.
In terms of the female-to-male ratio in senior managerial jobs, Mizoram again topped the list with 40.8 per cent, followed by Sikkim (32.5 per cent), Meghalaya (31 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (30.4 per cent). A noticeable departure from previous years, was Punjab’s recorded ratio of only 7.5 per cent—the Northern state had charted among the top states just in 2021.
Experts in the field believe that Northeastern states tend to fare much better due to a number of reasons. “It has got to do with education, culture and gender sensitivity,” Pronab Sen, an eminent economist and the former chief statistician of India, noted in an interview. “For other states to follow, there has to be social transformation across the spectrum.”
*Image used for representative purpose.