India's women have won the classroom, the workplace is the next frontier

This article is authored by Dheemant Agrawal, head of digital strategies & student affairs, JECRC Foundation, Jaipur.

For years, the conversation about women in Indian higher education was framed as one of catching up. The latest All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE 2023-24), released by the ministry of education in July, should retire that framing for good.

Working Women (Shutterstock)

A decade ago, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for women aged 18-23 stood at 22.9. It is now 31.2, ahead of the national figure of 30.0 and well clear of the male GER of 28.9.

Women have out-enrolled men on this measure every year since 2017-18, and the gap is widening. Female enrolment has grown 42.2% since 2014-15 to 2.24 crore, which means roughly 67 lakh more women are on India's campuses today than ten years ago. And in the year that STEM enrolment crossed one crore for the first time, women made up 44% of it, up from 38.4% a decade earlier. In states as different as Kerala, Haryana and Punjab, women's participation now clearly outstrips men's.

These are not marginal gains. They are a generational shift, achieved within a single decade.

Statistics tell you the direction; campuses tell you the texture. Across the institutions I work with, which serve more than 25,000 students, the change is impossible to miss. Young women pitch to investors at our incubation centre, lead student clubs, and build projects in our innovation lab that, frankly, I would not have dared attempt at their age. They are not waiting to be included. They are setting the pace.

Behind almost every one of them is a family that took a considered risk. A father who said yes when relatives said no. A mother who quietly gave something up so the fees could be paid. Every enrolment figure in AISHE is, at its core, a household's bet on a daughter's future.

The question our education system must now answer is a simple one: Does that bet pay off?

Enrolment is the beginning of the story, not the end. Once the degree is in hand, the numbers turn sobering. The Periodic Labour Force Survey 2025 puts female labour force participation at 40%, against 79.1% for men. In urban India, where most graduates go looking for work, it is closer to 28%. In the startup economy, companies with women co-founders drew just 11.6% of private capital raised in 2025.

The leak happens at four predictable moments: The first internship, the first job offer, the first promotion and the first founder cheque. Each is a threshold where capable young women meet systems that were not designed with them in mind, and where too many of them quietly step away.

If that bet stops paying off the day she graduates, we have let her down.

Universities cannot fix the labour market on their own, but we are far from bystanders. Four shifts would make a measurable difference.

Treat graduate outcomes as an equity metric. Institutions report enrolment by gender with pride. They should report internship conversion, offer rates and starting salaries by gender with the same transparency. What is measured gets managed.

Build the first rung of the ladder on campus. Industry-integrated projects, paid internships with employers who commit to safe and flexible workplaces, and structured alumni mentorship ensure that a young woman's first opportunity does not depend on her family's network.

Make incubation gender-intentional. In my experience, women students pitch with every bit as much conviction as their peers. What they often lack is access to the rooms where cheques are written. Campus incubators should actively broker introductions to angel networks and women-focused funds, rather than assuming a level playing field.

Bring families into the career conversation. Families who backed a daughter's education must come to see her career as the return on that investment, not a detour. Engaging parents on placements, relocation and workplace safety can change decisions at precisely the moment they are being made.

The National Education Policy 2020 targets a GER of 50% by 2035. Women will drive much of that growth. But a 50% GER that feeds a workforce in which women remain a minority would be a hollow achievement. For the coming decade, the measure of success should not be how many women we enrol, but how many we launch.

The data tells us she isn't catching up. She's leading. The task before educators, employers and policymakers is to make sure she is still leading five years after convocation.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Dheemant Agrawal, head of digital strategies & student affairs, JECRC Foundation, Jaipur.