Women & Work – Where our lens turned in June 2025
News, research and data about women and work - curated by our team
Hello, and welcome to CEDA’s newsletter ‘Women & Work’!
June marks the halfway milestone of 2025—a perfect time to pause and take stock. The year so far has brought both challenges and breakthroughs, and we’re grateful for the community that’s grown with us through every edition. In this issue, we spotlight the moments that mattered, the conversations that sparked change, and the questions that will shape the rest of the year. Join us as we reflect on the journey, recharge our purpose, and reignite our passion for advancing women at work.
Before we get started, a request: We are curating ‘Women & Work’ with the hope that it can provoke, stimulate and amplify conversations about women’s participation in paid work in India. If you like this edition, please do share it on your social media, and with your friends, family and colleagues. Thank you.
In case you would like to read any of our past editions, they are available here.
🗞️ In The News
The Indian armed forces marked a historic milestone as the first cohort of women cadets graduated from the National Defence Academy, now commissioned into the Army, Navy, and Air Force. These 17 pioneers underwent the same rigorous training as their male peers, excelling in academics, endurance, and leadership. Their induction signals more than symbolic progress—it reflects a substantive shift in recruitment, training, and integration across the defence services. Read how these officers are reshaping the future of India’s military workforce here.
Lieutenant Commander Yashasvi Solanki has become the first woman officer from the Indian Navy appointed as Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to the President of India. Selected through a rigorous evaluation, she now serves at the helm of high-level coordination and protocol at the nation’s highest office. Her appointment is a landmark moment in military leadership, signalling a broader shift towards inclusive and merit-driven roles for women in the armed forces. Discover how her trailblazing path is redefining leadership in uniform here.
India has slipped to 131 out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2025, with an overall gender parity score of 64.4 percent. Its score for economic participation and opportunity stands at just 40.7 percent, placing it among the bottom five globally. While there’s been a slight rise in income parity (now at 29.9 percent), women continue to face steep barriers to workforce entry, fair pay, and leadership roles. Read the full analysis here.
Over the past 17 months, 115 women sugarcane workers—primarily over the age of 35 and from Maharashtra—have undergone hysterectomies, according to official data. Many reportedly face pressure to undergo these surgeries to avoid missing work during menstruation. The practice underscores the exploitative conditions in the sugarcane industry, where inadequate health protections, basic rights, and economic insecurity compel women to take extreme measures to retain employment. The issue has drawn judicial scrutiny and renewed calls for urgent reforms to safeguard women workers. Read more here.
💡 Research Spotlight
Menopause is not a private inconvenience—it’s a workplace reckoning we’ve ignored for far too long.
A recent study published in Gender, Work & Organization sheds light on how menopause—far from a silent biological transition—is derailing women’s professional lives in plain sight. Drawing on interviews with 50 cisgender menopausal women in the UK, the research examines how the workplace becomes a site of quiet struggle: where bodies falter, support is absent, and silence is expected. Rooted in feminist theories of embodiment, especially Drew Leder’s concept of “dys-appearance”, where the body becomes disruptive when it malfunctions— the study reveals a pattern of daily breakdowns, masked by professionalism and fear.
🚨 Key Findings
1. Menopause disrupts daily work performance
Women reported experiencing severe fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, hot flashes, and insomnia—all of which interfered with concentration, memory, and communication. These weren’t occasional interruptions; for many, they were daily, cumulative stressors.
“I was forgetting words in front of clients. I couldn’t think clearly, and it terrified me.”
2. Women feel compelled to hide what they’re going through
Over 80 percent of participants said they hadn’t disclosed their symptoms to a manager or colleague. Fear of being seen as weak, emotional, or less capable led many to mask their struggles.
“We talk about maternity, even mental health. But menopause? That’s still unspeakable.”
3. Workplaces are completely unprepared
Participants described a striking lack of support—no menopause leave, no HR guidance, no space for rest or flexibility. While some workplaces had maternity accommodations, menopause remained completely absent from policy conversations.
“It’s like women over 45 don’t count in workforce planning.”
4. Coping becomes individual and exhausting
Women resorted to personal strategies: bringing fans to meetings, avoiding high-stress tasks, shifting work hours, or stepping down from leadership roles. Some even considered early retirement.
“I adjusted everything around my symptoms. But I felt completely alone in doing it.”
📌 Why It Matters
This study is a wake-up call: Menopause is not a personal inconvenience — it’s a systemic failure in workplace design and policy. Despite menopause affecting nearly half the workforce at some point, most workplaces still lack policies, training, or even basic awareness. The study highlights a need for:
Flexible work schedules and remote options during symptom-heavy periods
Designated rest spaces and non-stigmatised sick leave
Manager and HR training to normalise conversations
Inclusion of menopause in health and gender equity policies
It’s time to stop asking women to shrink their symptoms—or their goals—to fit the workplace. Instead, let’s build workplaces that grow to fit them. Read the full study here.
📊 Datapoint
Who really keeps our homes running?
Data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023–24, visualised on CEDA’s Socio-Economic Data Portal (SEDP), offers a revealing insight: on average, women make up 51.3 percent of all domestic labour in India. This is based on what's called principal activity status—a measure of how most people spend their time through the year. For millions of women, that work is unpaid household duties like cooking, cleaning, and caregiving. This isn’t just about chores. It’s about time, energy, and unpaid labour that fuels the rest of the economy—yet remains largely invisible in our official statistics. Across age groups, castes, religions, and regions, this gendered burden persists, quietly propping up households while limiting women’s choices elsewhere. So what does it say about how we value women’s time? And what might change if this work were finally recognised for what it truly is—essential, skilled, and foundational to the economy?
SEDP provides a powerful tool for exploring and analysing socio-economic data at the state and district-level across a range of sectors including health, education, and employment. Use SEDP to uncover critical socio-economic trends and drive informed decisions in research, policy, and advocacy. Explore here.
⏳ Throwback
You can ask the flowers, I sit for hours
Tellin' all the bluebirds, the bill and coo birds
Pretty little baby, I'm so in love with you!
If these lines made you smile or sent you down a reel-scrolling spiral— you’re not alone: Pretty Little Baby is everywhere! With its swoony vintage charm, the song has gone viral, soundtracking everything from moody edits to nostalgic love stories. But while the melody feels light and lovely, the woman behind it was nothing short of a powerhouse.
Meet Connie Francis. She wasn’t just a pop singer—she was a music industry trailblazer!
In 1958, she became the first woman to top the Billboard Hot 100, and went on to sell over 100 million records worldwide. She recorded in more than 15 languages, broke into markets across the globe, and headlined stages women had never stood on before. What makes her legacy even more powerful? Connie didn’t just sing—she fought. In a male-dominated industry that often handed women pre-written scripts and little creative say, she insisted on choosing her own songs, shaping her sound, and steering her career on her terms. At a time when female performers were often treated as disposable or decorative, she demanded to be taken seriously- both as a talent and a decision-maker.
Her story is a reminder that the fight for visibility, voice, and value at work isn’t new. Connie Francis carved out space where there was none—and laid the groundwork for generations of women in creative industries to be seen as leaders, not just performers. Do give the track a listen—and the next time it plays on your feed, remember: behind that “pretty little baby” was a young woman in a studio full of men, making history with every note.
📽️ Lights, Camera, Hustle: Women’s Work Lives in Movies
This fictional CV is a creative work inspired by the character Gangubai Kathiawadi, as depicted in the film Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) and related historical accounts. All names, events, and references are respectfully credited to the original creators, filmmakers, and rights holders.
Thank you for reading! If you have feedback, questions, tips, or just want to say hello, feel free to do so by replying to this email, or drop in a word at editorial.ceda@ashoka.edu.in
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Curated by: Sneha Mariam Thomas for the Centre for Economic Data & Analysis (CEDA), Ashoka University. Cover illustration: Nithya Subramanian