Vol. 3, Issue 4, Part A (2017)

Abstract
India has experienced rapid economic growth, structural shifts in the economy, increase in educational attainment levels, and rapid urbanization in the last twenty five years. In the same period there has been a 23% decline in the female labour force participation rate. What’s the relationship between economic growth and women’s economic activity? Is growth enough or does the nature of growth matter in attracting more women to the labour force? The paper tries to explain the share of women in total labour force in NER. Another objective of the paper is to correlate the level of education of women with the participation rate of women in economic activity. Female literacy rate has been used as an indicator of women education and Female Work Participation Rate (FWPR) is used as a parameter of participation of labour force of women. The paper finds a very paradoxical situation that in other developed states of India where female literacy rate is comparatively higher than the states of NER, female WPR is relatively lower in those states compared to NER. This implies that even if NER records a comparatively lower female literacy rate than that of other developed states of India, female WPR is comparatively higher. The paper ends with certain interesting questions that will open further research avenues in this area.