New Delhi: In the last six years, participation of women workers in blue and grey collar jobs has picked up only one percentage point, a study with a sample size of 102,905 persons has found.Conducted by a frontline workforce management platform, BetterPlace, for the Economic Times, the study has shown that the percentage of women in blue and grey collar jobs in the country as of December 2022 stands at only 13.2%, as against 11.96% in 2017.The participation of women in these categories of jobs had seen a nosedive during the COVID-19 pandemic. As per a report on the study in the Economic Times, the number had dwindled to a dismal 6.34% in 2020, underlining the fact that the drop in work force due to the pandemic had particularly affected women workers. “…they were the first ones to leave (a job) because of family responsibilities,” the report said.For several years, Indian women’s participation in workforce has straddled between 11% and 13%. Even though the study showed a state of recovery with more and more women finding jobs in blue and grey collar sectors since the effect of the pandemic has lifted on the industry and society in general, if the number is placed against the pre-Covid percentage, it is only a one point increase.The reasons cited in the report for low participation of women in the workforce highlights not only social factors acting as barriers but also the lack of adequate measures taken by the government and the industry to ensure a change. “Experts attribute the slow progress to a combination of factors, such as lack of enabling support systems, including flexibility, child and eldercare facilities, remote location of factories and last mile mobility challenges, lack of infrastructure readiness at workplace as well as existing cultural biases and stereotypes – both at work and in the society,” the news report said.Quoting Pravin Agarwala, group chief executive of BetterPlace, the report said, “Women’s low participation is a factor of constraints both from supply and demand side.” He said, “On the supply side, lack of flexibility in working hours and the nature of work act as a constraint for women. Most frontline women who take up jobs have dual roles. They have to manage both their household and professional obligations.”Highlighting the demand side of the problem, the report underlined that most of the jobs that women would like to sign up for are under-roof profiled such as inventory management and assembly lines in manufacturing. “We see higher demand from women in these job roles,” said Agarwala, adding, “But when it comes to opportunities, they are higher in outdoor jobs like delivery executives, construction workers, etc. This demand-supply gap is also another major cause for lower women’s participation.”