Unravelling the Drivers of Women's Economic Participation in India: Distributional Evidence From the Green–Digital Transition Within the SDG Framework

ABSTRACT

Gender equality, the central objective of Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), is a fundamental pillar of sustainable development. Focusing on its economic participation dimension, this study examines how renewable energy, digitalization, gender parity in education, institutional quality, and economic development are associated with women's relative labour‐market participation in India over the period 2000–2025. To capture heterogeneous relationships beyond conventional mean‐based approaches, the analysis employs Quantile Regression (QR), Quantile‐on‐Quantile Regression (QQR), Wavelet Quantile Regression (WQR), and Quantile‐on‐Quantile Granger causality. The findings reveal pronounced distribution‐dependent relationships across the conditional distribution of the female‐to‐male labour force participation ratio. Renewable energy, digitalization, institutional quality, and economic development show predominantly positive associations, although their magnitudes vary across quantiles. In contrast, gender parity in education exhibits predominantly negative and heterogeneous effects. The WQR results reveal frequency‐dependent variation in the estimated relationships, while the Quantile‐on‐Quantile Granger analysis identifies predictive relationships within specific quantile combinations. The findings highlight the importance of coordinated green, digital, educational, institutional, and economic policies for expanding women's economic participation and strengthening progress across interconnected SDG dimensions in India.