Abstract
Using rich panel micro-data on labor force participation status, we show that India’s low female labor force participation reflects not only low entry into employment, but also extremely high exits. Employed women are seven times as likely as men to exit into non-participation, even conditional on demographics, including marriage and education. These exits are largely to home production and are persistent. We document that employment protections are associated with substantially lower exits for women – assigning exit rates of protected women to unprotected women could raise steady-state participation by 21% of the baseline.
