As a country invested in improving women’s workforce participation, India’s cities play a pivotal role in the transformation. Cities can empower working women in several ways by implementing policies, creating supportive environments, and offering resources that enable women to thrive in the workforce.
Top Cities for Women in India is the only kind of study that addresses different inclusivity aspects of cities across two categories, offering insights into strengths and gaps and the effectiveness of policies while encouraging corporate accountability and attracting talent and investment.
Report
About the Report
The Top Cities for Women in India 2023 study creates a City Inclusion Score (CIS) for a list of pre-determined cities (chosen based on the role these cities play in the economic growth of the country). The CIS is a composite of the three pillars, namely:
Social Inclusion Score (SIS)
Social Inclusion Score (SIS) - takes into account the external social environment of including how safe the city is for women, how many women of the city are employed, how good is the quality of life in the city with respect to education, health, housing, water and sanitation, mobility, recreation, etc.
Industrial Inclusion Score (IIS)
Industrial Inclusion Score (IIS) - an industrial/business concept and evaluates the extent to which organizations in the city across industries are inclusive of women.
Citizen Experience Score (CES)
Citizen Experience Score (CES) - data collated from a pan Indian survey of working women to create a Citizen Experience Score (CES).
Key Findings
Key Findings
The study covered 113 cities in the country to gauge their inclusivity and conduciveness to working women. In the 2022 study, we covered 111 cities.
The 113 cities covered in this study were divided into two categories:
Category 1 (cities with a population of more than a million) Category 2 (cities with less than a million population)
The study covered 49 cities in the million-plus population category and 64 cities in less than a million population category. An open survey and focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were also conducted from July 2023 to December 2023 in which over 1200 women from across the country participated and shared their experience of living in their cities.
2023
Top Cities for Women in India (TCWI) 2023
On the basis of the analyses conducted with respect to the framework of the study, an aggregate score was arrived at for each of the 113 cities. The cities were then ranked on the basis of the scores, with the highest scoring city receiving rank number one in each category – million plus and less than a million category. The table below shows the ranking of the top 10 cities under the million plus and less than a million category.
Million Plus Cities
| Rank | City | State |
|---|---|---|
1 | Chennai | Tamil Nadu |
2 | Bengaluru | Karnataka |
3 | Pune | Maharashtra |
4 | Mumbai | Maharashtra |
5 | Hyderabad | Telangana |
6 | Kolkata | West Bengal |
7 | Ahmedabad | Gujarat |
8 | Delhi | Delhi |
9 | Coimbatore | Tamil Nadu |
10 | Jaipur | Rajasthan |
Less than a million cities
| Rank | City | State |
|---|---|---|
1 | Tiruchirappalli | Tamil Nadu |
2 | Vellore | Tamil Nadu |
3 | Kochi | Kerala |
4 | Thiruvananthapuram | Kerala |
5 | Shimla | Himachal Pradesh |
6 | Salem | Tamil Nadu |
7 | Erode | Tamil Nadu |
8 | Tiruppur | Tamil Nadu |
9 | Gurugram | Haryana |
10 | Puducherry | Puducherry |
Previous edition
In the first edition of the ‘Top Cities for Women in India’, we identified very critical indices to measure a city in terms of their ability to empower women’s careers. The framework is holistic and rests on pillars that cover safety, governmental policies for empowerment, density of women friendly organisations and industries to name a few. A total of 111 cities in India were analysed basis the study constructs and the ranking has emerged.
