From Dreams to Dignity Empowering Urban Marginalised Women through Collective Livelihood Options
From Dreams to Dignity Empowering Urban Marginalised Women through Collective Livelihood Options
Author : Pallavi Barua, Bhagyashri More
December 12, 2025
India’s rapid urbanisation has drawn millions into cities, projecting an image of economic
progress. Yet beneath this narrative lies a stark reality: urban poverty remains deeply
entrenched and gendered. Informal settlements are home to workers employed in lowpaying, unprotected jobs, leaving them vulnerable to shocks with limited opportunity for
advancement. Women in particular face systemic exclusion. They are concentrated in the
most informal and precarious forms of employment and constrained by cultural barriers,
limited access to technology and restricted mobility. Adding to this are familial hurdles – many
women require permission from male family members to work, and even when they do,
control over their earnings often may not be in their hands
Although official data shows that urban poverty declined from 13.7 percent in 2012 to 12.55
percent in 2022, these figures fail to capture the lived realities of millions of women who, due
to entrenched gender norms and structural barriers, remain outside the scope of meaningful
workforce participation. Their labour is often undervalued, uncontracted, and without social
protection. Women in urban informal economies are typically engaged in unregulated work,
without formal contracts, fair wages, social security, health insurance, or legal safeguards. They
are often the first to lose employment during economic downturns and often the last to regain
it.
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