For years, the standard way to check whether India’s vocational training system was getting fairer to women has been to look at one number: what share of trainees in a given scheme are female. On that measure, the recent trend looks like good news. Women now make up 56 per cent of all candidates certified under PMKVY 4.0, the flagship short-term skilling scheme run by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and just over 60 per cent of those trained under DDU-GKY, the rural scheme linked to job placement run by the Ministry of Rural Development.

Read in isolation, these figures suggest the gender gap in India’s skilling system is closing, and closing fast. It isn’t, and the reason becomes obvious the moment you stop counting heads and start asking which trades those heads are sitting in. NITI Aayog’s Skill Development, Labour & Employment Division has, in passing, put out a working paper that makes this distinction unavoidable. Pulling together cumulative enrolment and certification data from Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), PMKVY 4.0 and DDU-GKY, covering periods up to early 2026, the analysis shows that women’s apparent dominance in short term schemes sits on top of an almost total absence from technical and industrial trades.

The picture that emerges, examined trade by trade rather than scheme by scheme, is not one of closing gaps but of a skilling system efficiently sorting men and women into separate, unequal tracks. Start with ITIs, the backbone of India’s long term vocational training system, lasting one to two years, and the main pipeline into manufacturing, construction and engineering. Of the roughly 44.8 lakh candidates admitted between 2019 and 2024, only 12.65 per cent were women. Break that down further by stream, and the imbalance sharpens: women account for barely 5.5 per cent of all engineering trade admissions (electrician, fitter, welder, plumber, mechanic), even as they outnumber men in non-engineering streams such as fashion design, cosmetology and ecretarial practice.

Trade by trade, the engineering figures are stark: 2.7 per cent female participation in Motor Vehicle Mechanic, 2.9 per cent in Plumbing, 3.4 per cent in Fitter, 3.5 per cent in Welder, and 4.8 per cent as Electricians. Meanwhile, trades such as Embroidery, Fashion Design, Dressmaking and Cosmetology are 93 to 99 per cent female, not balanced participation but near total occupational sorting in the opposite direction. The short-term schemes tell a similar story once you look past the topline gender split.

Under PMKVY 4.0, women make up 65 to 95 per cent of certified........

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