If India is serious about becoming a developed economy, fast-tracking women’s political representation may be its most underappreciated reform.
As Parliament concluded its special session to consider advancing the 33% Women’s Reservation Act to the 2029 Lok Sabha elections this month, the debate must move beyond symbolism. This is not just about representation or electoral arithmetic. It is about improving governance, accelerating economic growth, and addressing persistent inequality.
A recent working paper[1], we co-authored for the National Council of Applied Economic Research, underscores this point. It shows that women’s participation in policymaking is not merely a matter of inclusion - it is a powerful driver of better development outcomes and more equitable growth.
India has made important strides in women’s empowerment over the past decade. Girls’ enrolment in schools has risen, financial inclusion has expanded through near-universal bank account ownership, and women have emerged as a decisive voting bloc. Yet, this progress remains incomplete. Women continue to be significantly underrepresented at the highest levels of political decision-making, including Parliament and the Union cabinet.
This gap is not just a matter of fairness, it has real economic and developmental consequences.
The evidence is unequivocal: when women participate more in governance, policy priorities shift, and outcomes improve. Our research finds that greater female representation in legislatures and cabinets is associated with higher public spending on health and education. More importantly, it is linked to better outcomes - lower infant and child mortality, improved access to basic services such as water and sanitation, and higher educational attainment.
These gains are neither accidental nor marginal. They reflect systematic differences in policy focus and implementation.
Women leaders are more likely to prioritise essential public goods that directly affect household welfare - healthcare, schooling, nutrition, and local infrastructure. They also tend to improve the efficiency of public spending, ensuring that resources are better targeted and more effectively delivered. In other words, women’s representation strengthens both the composition and the quality of public expenditure.
In a country like India, where inequality remains deep and multidimensional, this shift in priorities is critical.
Despite improvements in education, a large proportion of working-age women remains outside the labour force. Women face persistent barriers in accessing formal employment, limited access to credit and capital, and a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work. These constraints reduce productivity, limit household incomes, and slow overall economic growth.
Our research highlights that closing gender gaps in labour force participation alone could significantly boost India’s growth trajectory. Similarly, improving women’s access to finance, whether through formal banking, credit markets, or asset ownership has a stronger inequality-reducing effect than general financial expansion.
Yet, without sufficient representation in policymaking, these issues often struggle to receive sustained attention or coherent policy responses.
This is where the Women’s Reservation Act can be transformative.
By ensuring a critical mass of women in Parliament, the Act can reshape the policy landscape in at least three important ways.
First, it can reorient public spending priorities. With more women legislators, governments are more likely to allocate resources towards sectors that directly improve human development, particularly health, education, and social infrastructure. Second, it can improve policy outcomes. Evidence shows that even after controlling for levels of public expenditure, countries with greater female representation achieve better health and education indicators. Third, it can help shift social norms. Political visibility matters. When women occupy positions of authority, it challenges entrenched stereotypes about leadership and expands aspirations, especially among young girls. Over time, this can have powerful intergenerational effects, encouraging higher educational attainment, labour force participation, and leadership ambitions.
India’s own experience provides compelling support for this argument. The introduction of reservations for women in Panchayati raj institutions led to measurable improvements in local public goods provision, including drinking water, roads, and education. It also contributed to a gradual but significant shift in societal attitudes towards women leaders. Extending this transformation to the national level is the logical next step.
Critics often argue that reservation alone cannot address deeper structural inequalities. That is correct, but it also misses the point. Structural barriers are precisely why such interventions are necessary. Political representation is not a substitute for broader reforms; it is a catalyst that makes those reforms more likely and more effective.
At a time when India is positioning itself as a global growth engine, aspiring to higher-income status and greater geopolitical influence, leaving half its population underrepresented in decision-making is not just inequitable, it is inefficient.
Of course, political representation must be complemented by a broader reform agenda. Expanding women’s access to credit and financial services, investing in childcare and care infrastructure, enabling flexible and safe work environments, and addressing mobility and safety constraints are all essential. Equally important is tackling the social norms that continue to limit women’s economic and social participation.
But political empowerment can accelerate all of these changes.
Policies are ultimately shaped by those who design and implement them. A more gender-balanced Parliament is more likely to recognise and act on the full spectrum of challenges that women face, from labour market barriers to financial exclusion and unpaid care burdens.
There is also a larger macroeconomic logic at play. As gender gaps narrow, economies tend to grow faster. Higher growth, in turn, expands fiscal space, enabling greater public investment in infrastructure, health, and education. In this sense, the Women’s Reservation Act is not just a social reform. It is a strategic economic intervention.
[1] Women in Policymaking: Social Spending and Outcomes - NCAER | Quality . Relevance . Impact
