What is the unemployment rate among women in India?
MoSPI · released 15 Oct 2026 · next due by 16 Nov 2026
| Period | Value (%) |
|---|---|
| Sep 2026 | 5.2 |
| Aug 2026 | 5.1 |
| Jul 2026 | 5.4 |
| Jun 2026 | 5.9 |
| May 2026 | 5.6 |
| Apr 2026 | 5.4 |
| Mar 2026 | 5.3 |
| Feb 2026 | 5.1 |
| Jan 2026 | 5.6 |
| Dec 2025 | 4.9 |
| Nov 2025 | 4.8 |
| Oct 2025 | 5.4 |
| Sep 2025 | 5.5 |
| Aug 2025 | 5.2 |
| Jul 2025 | 5.1 |
| Jun 2025 | 5.6 |
| May 2025 | 5.8 |
| Apr 2025 | 5.0 |
Use in your answer
The unemployment rate among women in India was 5.2% in Sep 2026 (women aged 15 and above, current weekly status), compared with 5.1% in Aug 2026. Source: MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, Monthly Bulletin.
Cite as: Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), Monthly Bulletin (NSO, MoSPI), Sep 2026
What this shows
- Female unemployment was 5.2% in September 2026 (women 15+, current weekly status), against 4.9% for men.
- The gap is an urban one: 9.2% of urban women in the labour force were unemployed in September 2026, against 3.9% of rural women.
- Since April 2025 the rate has ranged from 4.8% (November 2025) to 5.9% (June 2026).
Cite this
Cite a fixed version from every published version below.
Source and method
What exactly is measured
Unemployment rate for women aged 15 and above, rural and urban combined, in current weekly status (CWS), from the Periodic Labour Force Survey monthly bulletin. It is the share of women in the labour force who were looking for work, not the share of all women. Monthly estimates began with the new survey design in April 2025; they are not comparable with older quarterly or annual PLFS figures.
History: every published version
Each time the source changes this series we archive the full series as it stood, with an archived copy of the source, and never delete an old version. Each version has a permanent page you can cite. Recorded since 18 Oct 2026: 1 version.
No figure in this series has been revised since we began recording on 18 Oct 2026.
- 18 periods, latest Sep 2026: 5.2% · first snapshotArchived source
03630e827e0e
Release notes (1)
- 5.2%Sep 2026, monthly bulletin
Get the data
Use it in Excel, Python or R
Excel (Data → From Web): https://india.tf/c/job-femur-048/data.csv
Python: pandas.read_csv("https://india.tf/c/job-femur-048/data.csv")
R: read.csv("https://india.tf/c/job-femur-048/data.csv")
All statistics: /api/index.json. Free to reuse with attribution (GODL-India).
