The Quick Read
- MoSPI’s first city-focused PLFS report covers 46 million-plus cities using 2025 data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey.
- Women’s Labour Force Participation Rate in these cities rose from 19.8% in 2017-18 to 27.2% in 2025.
- Women’s Worker Population Ratio also improved from 17.9% to 25.5% over the same period.
- Women in million-plus cities are more likely to be in regular wage or salaried jobs than women in urban India overall.
- The income gap remains stark. In regular wage or salaried work, men in these cities earn an average of ₹30,707 per month, while women earn ₹23,707 per month.
- For women, big cities offer a better labour market. They also expose how pay, care work, safety, transport and career mobility still shape access to power.
Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus Cities tells a promising, uneven story
India’s biggest cities are doing something important for women’s work. They are offering more regular jobs and creating higher earnings. They are also bringing more women into the labour force.
That is the encouraging part. The harder part is this: men are still getting paid more.
MoSPI’s new report, Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus Cities, is the first dedicated PLFS report on labour indicators across 46 Indian cities with a population of 10 lakh or more, as per Census 2011. It uses PLFS 2025 data and examines participation, employment, unemployment, earnings, working hours, and NEET status. The report says that city-level numbers are helpful because large urban centres often mask very different labour realities within state-level averages.
For women, the findings are important. These cities are not perfect labour markets. They are expensive and unequal. They are often hard to navigate without safe transport, housing and family support.
Even then, they offer clearer access to paid work than many other parts of urban India.
A recent Change in Content piece on female workforce participation in cities over 10 lakh covered the rise in participation. This article goes deeper into the bigger signal. India’s large cities are helping more women enter paid work, but the quality of that entry still warrants closer scrutiny.
More women are entering the labour force in large cities
The topline trend is positive.
According to MoSPI’s press note, women’s Labour Force Participation Rate in million-plus cities rose from 19.8% in 2017-18 to 27.2% in 2025. That is a gain of 7.4 percentage points. Women’s Worker Population Ratio also rose from 17.9% to 25.5% between 2017-18 and 2025.
It means two things. More women are either working or looking for work. And more women are actually employed.
The rise is significant because large Indian cities are often seen as difficult spaces for women. Jobs may be available, but the costs around them are high. Rent is high. Commutes are long. Care support is thin. Safety remains a daily calculation. Yet women are still entering these labour markets.
That says something about aspiration. It also says something about need. For many women, paid work is no longer optional. It is tied to household income, independence, education, identity and long-term security.
Still, the gender gap in participation remains large. In 2025, the Labour Force Participation Rate in million-plus cities was 75.9% for men and 27.2% for women under usual status. Female participation in these cities was also slightly lower than the urban India figure of 27.7%.
So, progress exists. Parity does not.
The strongest signal is regular salaried work
The most interesting finding is not only that more women are working. It is the kind of work many women are doing in these cities.
In million-plus cities, 65.1% of women workers are in regular wage or salaried employment. The comparable figure for women in urban India is 50.9%. Women in these cities also have a higher share of regular wage or salaried employment than men in the same cities, where the figure is 56.4%.
How does it help boost women’s economic power?
Regular wage or salaried work can mean more predictable income. It can mean access to payroll systems, formal contracts, social security, professional networks and career ladders. It may also improve bargaining power inside households.
The contrast with casual labour is sharp. In million-plus cities, only 3% of women workers are in casual labour, compared with 8.7% in urban India overall.
For years, discussions around women’s employment in India have often focused on invisible labour, unpaid family work and informal work. Those remain urgent issues. A previous Change in Content article on women moving from unpaid family work to self-employment in India looked at how visibility in employment data does not always translate into control over income.
The urban story is different. Million-plus cities appear to offer women stronger access to salaried roles. That is where policy and business attention should sharpen.
The pay gap remains the uncomfortable headline
Higher salaries in big cities do not mean equal salaries.
The MoSPI report shows that workers in million-plus cities earn more than the urban India average across employment categories. For regular wage or salaried employment, workers in million-plus cities earn an average of ₹28,808 a month, compared with ₹26,258 in urban India.
Women also earn more in these cities than women in urban India overall. In regular wage or salaried work, women in million-plus cities earn ₹23,707 a month on average, compared with ₹21,664 for women in urban India.
The gender gap remains wide.
Men in regular wage or salaried work in million-plus cities earn ₹30,707 a month on average. Women earn ₹23,707. That is a gap of ₹7,000 a month.
The gap is even sharper in self-employment. Men in million-plus cities earn ₹33,888 on average from self-employment during the last 30 days. Women earn ₹16,167. In casual labour, men earn ₹643 per day, while women earn ₹434 per day.
So the city premium is real. The gender penalty is also real. Women may be closer to better work in large cities. But they are still not achieving the same financial outcomes in the labour market.
Why big cities help women, and where they still fail
Million-plus cities create scale, which helps women. They have more offices, hospitals, schools, retail chains, factories, logistics hubs, service firms, start-ups, technology companies, and public-sector institutions. They also create demand for roles in administration, finance, sales, education, healthcare, hospitality, technology, care services and professional work. That wider labour market can open doors for women.
A woman in a small town may have fewer employers to choose from. A woman in a large city may be able to switch jobs, negotiate, upskill or change sectors. That is one reason women’s job migration is now worth watching. Change in Content recently examined how job migration in India is drawing more women into blue- and grey-collar work, especially as workers seek better wages and stronger prospects.
But cities also create new barriers.
The cost of living can eat into women’s earnings. A long commute can make a job unviable. Unsafe transport can restrict shifts. The lack of affordable rental housing can determine whether a woman can move for work at all. Childcare costs can push married women or mothers out of the labour market.
The MoSPI report gives a clear clue. Among women in million-plus cities who are outside the labour force, 68.7% cited childcare responsibilities or personal commitments in homemaking as the main reason. Among men outside the labour force, the leading reason was the desire to continue studies, at 53.5%. That is one of the most revealing findings in the report.
Men are more likely to be outside the labour force because they are studying. Women are more likely to be outside it because they are managing care and home responsibilities. We must not see this as a small difference. It shows how the labour market is shaped before a woman even applies for a job.
The city-wise picture also deserves attention
The report also shows wide variation across cities.
For example, Coimbatore recorded a female LFPR of 41.3% and female WPR of 41.1% under usual status. Women made up a strong share of regular wage employment there, with 70.4% of workers in regular wage jobs being women.
Bengaluru also showed a high rate of regular wage employment among women. The city recorded a female LFPR of 33.2%, a female WPR of 31.9%, and 81.5% of women workers in regular wage employment.
These examples show that we cannot understand India’s urban labour market as one single story. Chennai, Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Surat, Patna, Indore, Delhi, Lucknow and Kolkata do not offer the same work conditions.
Some cities may offer stronger formal work. Others may depend more on self-employment or informal services. Some may be better for women’s salaried work, while others may offer work without enough safety, transport or wage protection.
For companies, it means hiring women cannot be a single national strategy. It needs city-level planning.
For governments, it means women’s employment policy must be integrated into urban planning. Jobs alone will not solve the problem. Transport, housing, childcare, safety, skilling and local industry design are part of the same picture.
Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus cities: What women can take from the data
The data convey a practical message to women. Large cities can offer better work options, but the gains are not automatic. Women entering or re-entering the workforce should look closely at job quality. Salary is one part of it. Stability is another. Growth is the third.
A regular job that pays modestly but offers learning, a provident fund, insurance, a safer commute, and promotion potential may be more powerful than a higher-paying role with no stability. At the same time, women should not undersell themselves simply because a role looks safer.
Women also need better information before choosing cities, sectors and employers. They should ask simple but serious questions.
- Does the employer offer written contracts?
- Are women present in supervisory roles?
- Is there safe transport for late shifts? Are salaries transparent?
- Is maternity or childcare support available?
- Are women being promoted, or only hired at entry levels?
These questions may feel uncomfortable. But they are necessary.
Women should also track their earnings. Many women know their salary, but not their market value. The MoSPI data shows that pay gaps persist even where women have access to regular jobs. That makes negotiation, skill-building, and peer salary awareness more important.
What organisations should do differently
Companies in large cities should read this report as an opportunity.
There is a growing pool of women ready to work in India’s biggest urban labour markets. Many are already entering regular wage employment. Businesses that build better systems around women’s work can access talent before their competitors do.
The first step is pay transparency. Companies should audit gender pay gaps by role, level, function and city. The point is not to publish a glossy statement. Instead, the point is to find where women are being paid less for similar work or clustered in lower-paying tracks.
The second step is shift and transport design. It is especially important in sectors such as retail, manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare, logistics, BPOs and services. A job that requires unsafe travel is not equally available to women.
The third step is childcare support. The MoSPI finding on women’s non-participation is clear. Care responsibilities are a major reason women stay outside the labour force. Employers cannot solve every household issue. But they can design returnship programmes, predictable schedules, childcare partnerships and manager training.
The fourth step is promotion tracking. Hiring women into regular jobs is a start. Moving them into supervisory, managerial and profit-linked roles is where power begins.
The fifth step is local recruitment. Companies should understand city-specific barriers. Women in one city may need transport. In another, they may need hostel tie-ups. In another, skilling may be the missing link.
A one-size workplace policy will miss too much.
What policymakers should watch
The MoSPI report provides policymakers with a useful basis. It also points to the next set of questions.
- Are women’s regular jobs concentrated in a few sectors?
- Do these jobs offer social security? Are women moving into higher-paid occupations?
- Which cities are creating the strongest employment conditions for women?
- Which cities are excluding women from the labour force due to care burdens, safety concerns, or a lack of suitable work?
The NEET data also needs attention. Million-plus cities recorded a lower youth NEET rate than urban India for the 15-29 age group, at 22.2% compared with 25%. But the gender split is stark. Among 15-29-year-olds in million-plus cities, the NEET rate was 8.3% for men and 38% for women.
That means many young women are still outside employment, education and training. It is the future workforce India cannot afford to lose.
Urban policy should therefore treat women’s employment as a core question for cities. Not as a welfare add-on. A city that cannot move women safely, house them affordably, train them well and connect them to decent work is leaving economic value on the table.
The Change in Content View on the Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus Cities Report
India’s million-plus cities are giving women a stronger route into regular paid work. That is a real gain.
The same data also shows the limits of access without equality. Women may enter the workforce, work longer hours than before, and move into salaried jobs. Yet they continue to earn less than men. Many remain outside the labour force because care work still sits heavily on them.
That is where the business ecosystem has to pay attention. Women’s employment is not only about counting how many women work. It is about what kind of work they get, what they earn, how safe their journey is, whether they can stay, and whether they can rise.
India’s largest cities are opening the door wider. Now the question is whether employers, policymakers and urban systems will help women walk through it with power.
Editorial Note and Sources
This article is based on publicly available data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s 2026 report on labour market dynamics in million-plus cities, as well as the related official press note. The article interprets the data through the lens of women, work and economic power. It is intended for editorial and informational purposes only. It should not be read as legal, financial, labour compliance or policy advice. City-level estimates should be interpreted with care, as MoSPI notes that sample size and reliability vary across cities.
Sources used:
- Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, National Statistics Office: Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus Cities, June 2026.
- Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation: Press Note on Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus Cities.
