学术高级英语：越来越少印度女人外出工作（episode 2)

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India’s bid(出价，投标) to become a middle-income country hinges on(以…为转移/依赖于) the likes of Ms Kaur. India, soon to become the world’s most populous(人口稠密的) country, now stands at(达到，处于) 121st out of 131 countries ranked by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for female participation in the workforce. Across the world, some 700m more women would be working if their employment rates (就业率) matched(和…匹配) that of men. A third of those, or 235m, would be in India. Even if India had maintained(维持，保持) the rate of 2005, that would have translated into a further 42m workers. That is not far from the number employed in all Indian manufacturing(制造业). China, whose footsteps(足迹) to relative(成比例的) prosperity(繁荣) it aches(渴望) to follow, has barely more men working than India. Despite(尽管) a drop as workplace participation dipped(下降) for both men and women, its overall workforce is nearly 50% bigger thanks to many more women working.

What prompted(引起) the drop(下降)? Part of the fall(下降) in the number of working women is actually good news. Indian girls are staying in school longer. Research suggests that it explains perhaps a third of the decline(下降) in the participation rate, which counts all females aged 15 and above. (But a startling令人震惊的 gender gap remains: some 49% of women between 15 and 24 years old are not in education, employment or training, compared with just 8% for boys.)

This learning spurt(迸发) would be good news if girls used it to secure jobs. But a paradox 自相矛盾（的情况）of present-day(当今时代的) India is that the more education a girl gets, the less likely she is to work, bar(除...之外) the few that continue their studies past school. Various studies have found a “U-shape” relationship between educational attainment受教育程度 and workforce participation (see chart 2).

Illiterate[ɪ'lɪt(ə)rət]文盲 women, often from society’s poorest segments(部分), have little choice(没有选择) but to work. Most end up doing what amounts to subsistence farming 自给自足的农场经营. Two-thirds of India’s population live in the countryside and agriculture accounts for(比例占有) over half all female employment. As family incomes rise, women get more education, but upon completing their studies are excused from drudgery['drʌdʒərɪ] (hard boring work苦工，苦差事)in favour of(主张,在这里表示更倾向于) tending home. This would have been the fate of Ms Kaur, who has 12 years of schooling to her name. The trend reverses(颠倒) only with the small number of highly educated women.