Hyderabad: As the debate over 33% reservation for women returns to centre stage, a new NITI Aayog working paper has highlighted another persistent gender imbalance: Women remain overwhelmingly underrepresented in India’s core engineering trades.The report — Girls and Women at the Centre: Advancing Non-Traditional Livelihoods in India — shows that while women account for 93% to 99% of admissions in courses such as cosmetology, fashion design, dress making and embroidery, their participation in engineering trades—including mechanic (motor vehicle), plumber, fitter, welder and electrician—ranges from just 2.7% to 6.8%.The paper notes that India’s skilling ecosystem continues to channel women into traditional occupations, even as technical and industrial jobs offer higher wages, stronger career prospects and greater employment opportunities.Between 2019 and 2024, women accounted for only around two lakh admissions in engineering trades at Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), compared with nearly 36.5 lakh men. Women made up just 5.5% of total enrolments in these trades.Trade-wise data underscore the disparity. Women comprise just 2.7% of trainees in mechanic (motor vehicle), 2.9% in plumber, 3.4% in fitter, 3.5% in welder, 4.8% in electrician and 6.8% in wireman. These trades are among the largest sources of skilled employment in manufacturing, construction, infrastructure and maintenance.The picture is reversed in non-engineering trades. Women account for 98.8% of enrolments in surface ornamentation techniques (embroidery), 98.3% in cosmetology, 97.9% in fashion design and technology, 95.3% in dress making and 93% in sewing technology.Even in technology-linked non-engineering trades, women’s participation remains relatively modest, at 34.3% in computer operator and programming assistant (COPA) and 29.8% in computer hardware and network maintenance.Overall, women outnumber men in non-engineering ITI courses, recording nearly 3.5 lakh admissions compared with 2.6 lakh for men, accounting for around 57% of total enrolments in these streams. Officials said a similar trend is visible in Telangana.The report attributes the skew to a combination of gender stereotypes, inadequate career counselling, safety concerns, limited access to apprenticeships and the perception that industrial jobs are unsuitable for women.It argues that occupational segregation, rather than educational attainment, has emerged as one of the biggest barriers to women’s economic empowerment.To address the imbalance, NITI Aayog has recommended gender-sensitive career counselling, scholarships for girls entering non-traditional trades, targeted apprenticeship programmes, safer hostels and transport facilities, stronger industry partnerships and awareness campaigns to encourage women to pursue technical and industrial careers.
