The BRICS New Delhi Declaration adopted on September 12 has placed women’s economic participation within a broader labour-market agenda. The declaration calls for cooperation on skills forecasting in digital, green, care and other priority sectors. It also supports policies that can increase women’s participation in economic life, including appropriate care policies, and calls for greater social protection for workers in the gig and platform economy.
The discussions are particularly important at a time when global labour markets are undergoing profound transformations due to advancements in technology, automation, AI and digital labour platforms, which are reshaping employment along with the proliferation of new forms of employment. Women’s issues, being central to international policy discourse, were also discussed at the summit, which explored opportunities for women in the workforce. The lessons derived from BRICS countries are important for working towards women-led development.
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Earlier discussions in 2018 in South Africa had highlighted the promotion of equal pay and the need to address occupational segregation. The BRICS Brazil Presidency in 2019 focused on the future of work while committing to address the challenges through skill development and better social protection policies. However, the 2020 Summit under the Russian Presidency emphasised investing in the care economy and promoting care work. The first Employment Working Group (EWG) in 2021 highlighted the informal sector and the need to extend social security coverage to informal workers, while the EWG meetings in Russia and South Africa during 2023-2024 reflected on the care economy.
Women’s participation cannot be separated from job quality
The 11th BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meeting in 2025 in Brazil focused on promoting decent work among women, strengthening social protection systems and advancing skills development to prepare workers for digital transitions. The recently concluded BRICS EWG in 2026 focused on skills mapping and identified strong convergence on the importance of lifelong learning, vocational training and better skills-to-jobs matching. While the historical trajectory of discussions has clearly brought women to the centre stage of the development agenda, the need for strategic partnerships to promote employment and social security for all women remains an important area for collective action.
With diverse labour markets across BRICS, women’s sustained participation in the labour force has remained a challenge in most BRICS nations. Gender gaps in women’s labour-market participation have remained persistent across the world, and BRICS nations are no exception. Along with existing gender gaps in the labour market, there are issues of informality and occupational segregation, with women concentrated in certain sectors.
Among the BRICS nations, women’s participation in the labour force in India has remained low at 41% in 2024. While some BRICS nations have greater participation of women, including Russia at 56.5%, Indonesia at 56.4%, Brazil at 54.1%, the UAE at 55% and South Africa at 49.8%, other countries such as Egypt and Iran have female labour-force participation rates below 20%. How far these countries can commit to strengthening female labour-force participation while addressing the evident gender gaps remains an important question.
The BRICS Women Business Alliance Report 2023 highlighted some good practices in training in South Africa that contributed to enhancing female labour-force participation to 46%, as well as the leveraging of digital technology to enhance entrepreneurial potential. With contemporary developments in the labour market due to technological innovations, it is important to deliberate on skilling opportunities for women in BRICS nations so that they can transition smoothly to the future of work.
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BRICS forums need to deliberate on the nuances of vocational education and skilling to promote women’s inclusion in the future of work. In fact, the representation of women in STEM education has remained a challenge in BRICS nations. In India, despite increasing enrolment in STEM education, gender disparities still remain in newer and emerging areas such as AI and data science. As per the Global Gender Gap Report 2025, India has a greater share of women in STEM at 23% compared with other BRICS nations, which have a comparatively lower share. South Africa has 13.07%, Brazil has 8.5% and Egypt has 7.98%, while the UAE has 32% women in STEM education.
It is evident that persistent gaps in STEM education limit women’s career prospects and reinforce gender stereotypes in high-growth technical fields, even in countries such as India. Programmes such as India’s Vigyan Jyoti initiative, launched in 2019 by the Department of Science and Technology, which promotes meritorious girl students from Classes 9 to 12 to pursue STEM education; UNESCO’s EDUSTEM project in Brazil in 2022, which encourages girls and women to pursue STEM and reduces exclusion; and STEM boot camps in South Africa organised by UNESCO in 2026 are significant developments that need to be further deliberated upon, with experiences shared across BRICS.
Such practices can be part of the BRICS Digital Repository of Best Practices, which was proposed during the BRICS Women’s Ministerial Meeting on July 8-9, 2026. These platforms will be instrumental in sharing successful policies, programmes and innovations on women’s empowerment across BRICS member countries.
Apart from these discussions, another area for further deliberation is the rising care economy, which is expected to employ a large section of women in the future of work. A WEF Care Economy report in 2024 stated that unpaid care work adds up to the equivalent of nearly 2 billion people working full-time without pay. These unpaid care services contribute 9% of global GDP, or $11 trillion. A recent report by NITI Aayog, Reimagining Care: Strategies for Empowering Caregivers in Viksit Bharat 2047, has reflected on the growing care sector in India and urged for a National Policy on Caregiving to formalise and professionalise this sector in India.
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BRICS leaders across government, business and communities can work towards leveraging the care sector by sharing best practices, encouraging investment in care, and adopting innovative strategies and collaborative frameworks to recognise and strengthen the sector. Further, the rise of digital technologies is reshaping care work through digital platforms, providing flexibility on the one hand while, on the other, potentially replicating the precarity found in traditional care work. A lack of labour protection and limited access to social security can lead to precarity. BRICS partnerships provide an opportunity to deliberate on effective labour protections and social security provisions for promoting women’s work in this sector.
Within the BRICS policy discourse, a systemic, evidence-based approach can help countries understand emerging opportunities available to women while addressing vulnerabilities in new forms of employment on digital platforms and in the care economy. Within the skilling ecosystem, sharing good practices on STEM interventions and encouraging women’s participation in green, digital, AI and care sectors through targeted initiatives such as peer learning, mentorship programmes and certification programmes in emerging areas such as AI and care are important. These initiatives will be in line with the New Delhi Declaration 2026, which encourages the sharing of best practices, STEM scholarships and exchanges, stronger institutional partnerships and a commitment to strengthen policy frameworks to empower women.
Dr Ellina Samantroy is Faculty Co-ordinator, Centre for Gender and Labour, VV Giri National Labour Institute, Noida.