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Thozhi Hostels deliver high-quality housing solutions for working women, overcoming migration challenges in urban areas.

In recent years, India has seen a remarkable increase in female labour force participation, from 25 per cent in 2017-18 to 40 per cent in 2022-23, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey. This surge reflects growing economic aspirations among women, bolstered by improved education levels and a gradual improvement in the work conditions favourable for women’s employment.

However, despite this increase, gender parity in the workforce is yet to be achieved. The overall proportion of women in the workforce is still significantly lower than the global average. This disparity is due to predominant socio-cultural norms that overburden women with unpaid care and domestic work, restricting their mobility and independence and thereby limiting their ability to join the workforce. Additionally, in the absence of quality jobs, many willing to work are left without opportunities.

The recent increase in the female labour force participation rate has been driven mainly by the rural sector, with female LFPR in the age group 15-59 years jumping from 24.6 per cent in 2018-19 to more than 41 per cent in 2022-23.

Women are increasingly entering the workforce out of economic necessity and evolving social norms. Agriculture and allied activities and informal and self-employment opportunities have absorbed a significant portion of female workers in rural areas. The urban centres, on the other hand, have yet to show a remarkable pump, showing less than a 5-percentage point improvement over the previous five-year period. Tamil Nadu, however, has outperformed the national average with higher female LFPR in the urban manufacturing sector and the rural economy. It accounts for 42 per cent of all women workers in India’s manufacturing sector.

The success story behind the favourable overall work environment for women in Tamil Nadu has been spearheaded by the launch of Thozhi hostels by the Tamil Nadu government, developed under a public-private partnership (PPP) model, supported by the World Bank. This initiative combines public infrastructure with private expertise to deliver high-quality housing solutions for working women, overcoming migration challenges in urban areas.

As women increasingly pursue opportunities in cities like Chennai, providing safe, affordable, and well-managed accommodations has become crucial to encouraging their participation in the workforce. Safety concerns, poor living conditions, and inadequate services often made it difficult for women to transition smoothly into urban life. These challenges have historically discouraged many women from fully engaging in the workforce.

The Thozhi hostel model requires the government to provide the land and partial construction grants, while the Tamil Nadu Shelter Fund co-finances and oversees the project with real estate market insights. The locations are carefully chosen close to the industrial belts in the state to obtain desired outcomes. Professional private operators, selected through open bidding, manage the day-to-day operations and services, ensuring sustainability without additional government subsidies. Along with safety standards through camera surveillance and other state-of-the-art facilities, affordability constraints are handled through diverse options such as economy and air-conditioned rooms, single or shared accommodations, and flexible stay durations. With high occupancy rates (more than 2,000 women across 10 such hostels in Tamil Nadu), the economics law of competition has set a benchmark for private hostels to enhance their services, ultimately raising the quality of accommodation options for women statewide, considering the affordability constraints for the women.

The success of Thozhi hostels highlights the potential of leveraging public-private partnerships to address systemic challenges. The project’s efficient operations and sustainability have prompted plans to scale it across the state.

As India aims to achieve greater gender parity in the workforce, the Thozhi model offers a replicable framework for other states, emphasising the critical link between infrastructure and empowerment. This also holds significance with most other poor states needing help to design policies to overcome the demand-supply barriers to women’s labour force participation.

By creating safe and supportive spaces, states can enable women to take on urban employment confidently and independently, exemplifying how innovative solutions can transform challenges into opportunities. Providing safe lodging options to women is just the first among many interventions needed to bell the cat. It should be complemented by appropriate legislation on mobility, WASH facilities, legislative ease on workplace flexibility, and reduced burden of the care economy falling disproportionately on women.

The writer is an Associate Fellow, the National Council of Applied Economic Research. Views are personal.

As COP29 concludes in Baku, the world stands at a critical juncture in addressing the escalating climate crisis. Activist Greta Thunberg’s sharp critique-branding the summit’s draft text as “a complete disaster”-highlights the frustration over unmet promises and insufficient ambition. The Global South’s urgent demand for $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 has been countered by a mere $250 billion proposal, exposing a glaring gap between rhetoric and action. With climate-related disasters in 2024 alone causing over $520 billion in damages and displacing 40 million people, the stakes are higher than ever. The question remains: can global leadership rise to meet this challenge?

The recently concluded G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro was expected to galvanize global leaders into action on climate finance. Instead, it delivered vague commitments and a rehashed promise to finalize the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) by 2025. The NCQG, meant to replace the outdated $100 billion annual target, has yet to bridge the growing gap between rhetoric and reality. For instance, while developed nations agreed to provide $250 billion by 2035, this figure barely scratches the surface of the $6.8 trillion required annually to meet global climate goals.

India, a key player in the G20, requires $250 billion annually until 2047 to achieve its net-zero targets. However, mechanisms for mobilizing such funding remain conspicuously absent. The G20’s failure to provide actionable solutions leaves countries like India vulnerable to the compounding effects of climate disasters, which caused economic losses exceeding ?1.5 lakh crore in 2024.

Developing countries have long argued for equitable climate finance to combat the disproportionate impacts they face. Bangladesh, for instance, loses nearly 1% of its GDP annually to climate-induced disasters. Despite these vulnerabilities, the OECD reported that only $150 billion in climate finance was mobilized in 2022-less than 2.5% of what is required annually by 2030. The $250 billion annual commitment proposed at COP29 is a far cry from addressing the systemic inequalities embedded in climate finance negotiations.

The draft text’s suggestion that countries like China and Saudi Arabia contribute additional funds adds another layer of complexity. As “developing nations” under UN climate conventions, they have resisted obligations to finance adaptation efforts in other countries. This contentious issue, coupled with the ambiguous definitions of what constitutes “climate finance” (grants, loans, or private investments), risks undermining the very solidarity required to combat climate change effectively.

Compounding the uncertainties of COP29 is the spectre of Donald Trump’s re-election as U.S. President. His previous administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and prioritization of fossil fuel extraction set a dangerous precedent. Should Trump resume office, global climate diplomacy could suffer irreparable setbacks, jeopardizing years of progress. As the U.S. accounts for over 20% of historical emissions, its leadership-or lack thereof-will significantly influence climate finance negotiations.

The potential rollback of U.S. commitments threatens to derail the fragile consensus reached at COP29. Already, the U.S.’s current contributions to climate finance are insufficient to meet global demands, and Trump’s policies could further erode trust among nations. In this context, mobilizing the $1.3 trillion annual target advocated by the Global South appears increasingly unlikely.

The stakes could not be higher. A recent study projects that unchecked climate change could slash global GDP by up to 10% by 2050, equating to $178 trillion in damages. For the Asia-Pacific region, economic losses could reach $3.2 trillion annually by mid-century without robust mitigation efforts. Even developed nations are not immune: the U.S. faces $20 billion in annual wildfire damages, while Europe’s escalating heatwaves could cost €200 billion annually by 2050.

For India, the risks are even more immediate. With extreme weather events occurring on 342 days in 2024 alone, the country faces an annual GDP loss of 2-2.5% by 2050 if global temperatures exceed 1.5°C. These numbers underscore the urgent need for binding commitments and effective mechanisms to mobilize climate finance at scale.

COP29’s inability to address the core issues of climate finance represents a critical failure of global leadership. The Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, intended to support nations facing irreversible impacts, remains underfunded and inadequately operationalized. Similarly, progress on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which could enable global carbon markets, has stalled. Experts estimate that a robust Article 6 framework could reduce global emissions by 5 gigatons annually by 2030, yet this potential remains unrealized.

The summit’s proposed $250 billion annual target, while a step forward, lacks the scale and urgency needed to meet the climate challenge. Moreover, the absence of clear accountability mechanisms or enforceable timelines risks perpetuating the cycle of broken promises that has plagued previous negotiations.

As COP29 wraps up, it leaves behind a troubling legacy of unresolved ambitions. The promised $1.3 trillion in climate finance remains elusive, with a fragmented consensus revealing more divides than unity. While G20 nations control 85% of global GDP and three-quarters of emissions, their failure to deliver actionable solutions underscores a troubling inertia. This summit could have marked a turning point; instead, it serves as a cautionary tale of political gridlock in the face of an escalating crisis. The cost of inaction grows steeper each day, and the question remains: how much longer can the world afford to wait?

The writers are associated with National Council for Applied Economic Research, New Delhi. Views are personal.

Had Joe Biden withdrawn from the US presidential race earlier, there might have been a good chance that his successor would maintain many of his economic-policy initiatives. Now we will see how many of those policies – if any at all – survive another four years of Donald Trump.

The New York Times famously prepares obituaries for notable individuals well in advance of their death. Now that President Joe Biden’s administration is about to expire, an elegy is in order for its economic achievements, failures, and missed opportunities.

The administration’s achievements are self-evident, at least to the clear-eyed analyst – if not, as it appears, to the average voter. In Biden’s four years, the US outperformed virtually every other advanced economy in terms of output, employment, and productivity growth. Despite inheriting an unemployment rate of 6.3% in January 2021 and an elevated level of pandemic-related uncertainty, the administration drove unemployment down to just 4% in its first 12 months, where it essentially remained throughout Biden’s term.

Job growth among Black workers was especially impressive. Unemployment among African-Americans fell below 6%, down sharply from an average of 10% in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.

Admittedly, Biden’s inheritance also included a pandemic-stricken economy, creating ample scope for output and employment to bounce back. But the aftermath of the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-10 showed that the mere presence of economic slack is no guarantee of a macroeconomic bounce-back and sustained recovery. Biden administration officials took this lesson to heart. By boosting demand, the massive macroeconomic stimulus applied through the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the CHIPS and Science Act made all the difference.

With the benefit of hindsight, it will now be popular to argue that these measures made too much of a difference. They delivered a burst of inflation, which was a major factor in the electoral defeat of Biden’s anointed successor, Vice President Kamala Harris. Although the Fed succeeded in bringing this post-pandemic inflation under control relatively quickly, the rise in prices at the pump and the supermarket created angst among consumers and provided an effective talking point for Donald Trump.

If pandemic-era deficit spending had been curtailed more quickly, inflation would have been lower, but the recovery of output and employment would have been slower. It is not clear on balance that sentiment among consumers and workers would have improved or that the Democrats’ electoral prospects would have been any better.

Another cost of the Biden stimulus was the increase in federal government debt. But it is important not to exaggerate the severity of the problem. Debt in the hands of the public as a share of GDP rose from 94% in 2021 to 100% of GDP in 2024. Some will view this increase as modest, others will be alarmed. Either way, it does not signal an imminent debt crisis. Conventional economic models suggest that a debt increase of this magnitude will raise the real (inflation-adjusted) interest rate by at most a quarter of a percentage point – hardly Armageddon for debt-servicing costs.

It is, of course, regrettable that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have an appetite for meeting the problem of chronic deficits head-on. And Trump’s promise of massive tax cuts implies even larger deficits and higher debt. But the United States still has some years to run before this problem becomes acute. US Treasury securities are still regarded as safe assets. There may come a point in the not-too-distant future when securities currently regarded as safe are re-rated as unsafe. But financial markets are not going to force the issue in 2025.

Then there are Biden’s industrial policies. The US Department of Commerce is on track to allocate $53 billion by the end of 2024 to proposed CHIPS private-sector investments spanning 23 projects. Taking advantage of other incentives, companies have committed to nearly $400 billion in new US semiconductor investments. The outgoing administration anticipates 115,000 new construction and manufacturing jobs as a result of these investments.

Yet whether troubled companies like Intel can compete with powerhouses like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung, even with help of these subsidies, is unclear. Foreign semiconductor firms seeking to set up in the US complain about high construction costs and inadequately trained and poorly disciplined workers. Moreover, the federal bureaucracy has a very mixed record of picking winners. Can you say “Solyndra,” the failed solar-panel company supported by Barack Obama’s administration? (In fairness, the Obama administration also backed Elon Musk’s Tesla early on, though Tesla’s market share in the US declining.)

In fact, boosting productivity and creating good jobs were not the fundamental motives for the CHIPS Act. The central motive was geopolitical: to reduce US dependence on China – and on Taiwan, over which China looms – for high-tech inputs, and more generally to ensure that the US is self-sufficient in the development and manufacture of essential high-tech products. If the CHIPS Act’s subsidies don’t produce the desired result, then more subsidies will follow. The ultimate objective is not higher productivity and employment, but rather national security, even if achieving it comes at a significant economic cost.

On the environment, Biden’s record is mixed. He has used executive orders and regulations to protect parkland, strengthen the enforcement of environmental laws, and assist communities suffering from pollution and related harms. Unable to get Congress to agree on the Green New Deal, his administration turned to consumer tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy-efficient appliances. The IRA also provides funding for investments in clean-energy technologies. But this spending is spread over ten years, and its magnitude pales in comparison with both the clean-energy investments by European governments and the scale of the global problem. Moreover, the consumer subsidies of the IRA are discriminatory. They are not extended to imported EVs and heat pumps.

This brings us to the administration’s record on trade and protection. Biden did not retain the worst of Trump’s tariffs, but he maintained the tariffs on imports from China, and in 2024 his administration announced tariff hikes on an additional $18 billion of Chinese goods, including EVs, solar cells, batteries, steel, aluminum, and face masks. More than promoting national self-sufficiency, these measures sought to advance the specific objective of decoupling from China, reflecting the administration’s view of the People’s Republic as an economic and geopolitical rival.

Meanwhile, Biden did nothing to advance reform of the World Trade Organization. He continued to obstruct the appointment of judges to the WTO’s Appellate Body, no doubt because those judges would have had the IRA’s discriminatory subsidies squarely in their sights. For those who believe that globalization needs all the help it can get, this record was disappointing. It was not the worst record on trade of any recent administration, but neither was it the best.

A final economic policy issue is immigration, where Biden swung from liberal to restrictive, in line with the prevailing political mood. His policies ended up pleasing neither advocates nor opponents of immigration. Biden clamped down on illegal border crossings while opening legal pathways for immigrants from distressed countries like Haiti and Ukraine. But the legal status of many immigrants remains uncertain, limiting their incentive to invest in education and take other steps to contribute to the economy.

One can dispute who is responsible for this failure to reform the immigration system: an administration that swung from one position to the other, or a Republican Congress that saw chaos at the border as working to its political advantage. (Personally, I opt for the latter.) But there is no disputing that the result was a signal failure.

Such is Biden’s economic legacy. His political legacy can be summarized more briefly: he leaves behind a hot mess. Had he withdrawn from the presidential race earlier, there might have been a good chance that his successor would maintain many of his economic-policy initiatives. Now we will see how many of those policies – if any at all – survive four years of Trump and J.D. Vance.

Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, is a former senior policy adviser at the International Monetary Fund. He is the author of many books, including In Defense of Public Debt (Oxford University Press, 2021).