50% of women are forced to reject work or education due to safety concerns. “The average Indian woman spends ₹17,000 extra every year on safety.”

Our finding

Why we rated this “Misleading”

One survey, generalised to a country

Both parts of this claim — the share of women turning down work or study, and the annual safety cost — trace to a single study: *Women on the Move: The Impact of Safety Concerns on Women's Mobility*, published by ORF with Youth Ki Awaaz in 2021. [1]

Its scope defines what it can support. The survey covered 4,262 women across 140 Indian cities, with responses collected between December 2019 and September 2020.

It is urban-focused and based on self-reported online responses. It carries no equivalent representation of rural women, who are the majority of women in India. [2] [3]

That does not diminish the study. It does mean its findings describe online-reachable urban respondents, not Indian women as a class. Presenting them as a national picture extends the evidence past what its own sampling allows.

What the ₹17,000 figure measured

This is the more consequential of the two errors, because the number sounds like an observed expenditure and is not one.

The study examined the economic cost of choosing safer options — what women would forgo, or pay, to travel and work more safely. That is a willingness-to-pay measure. [5] [6]

It is not a finding that the average Indian woman spends roughly ₹17,000 a year on safety. The distinction between "would pay this much for a safer option" and "does spend this much annually" is the difference between a stated preference and a recorded transaction. Only the first was measured.

The concern is documented, and predates the survey

The barrier itself is real and has been recorded for years.

A 2014 PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry study on women's safety in Delhi found 64% of working women said crimes against women affected their productivity, because they hesitated to remain at their workplaces until late hours. [4]

Safety constraints on women's participation in work and education are a long-running problem, not a recent development — which is worth stating in a debate that often treats them as either new or solved.

What has been put in place

Under Mission Shakti, Women Helpline 181 has provided round-the-clock assistance to over 1.05 crore women and is linked to the 112 emergency response system, as of 31 July 2026.

There are 642 Nari Adalats operating nationwide, alongside the One Stop Centre framework for integrated support.

SHe-Box provides an online route for reporting workplace sexual harassment and tracking grievance redressal. [7]

The Safe City Project, launched in 2018, covers eight major cities with CCTV and command-and-control systems, crime-hotspot mapping, improved lighting, women police patrols, women help desks and emergency-response infrastructure. [8]

Where the claim goes wrong

The 50% figure comes from a non-representative urban online survey and is presented as describing all Indian women. The ₹17,000 figure describes willingness to pay for safety and is presented as actual annual expenditure.

What remains true

Safety concerns genuinely do push women out of jobs and courses. The ORF study documents that within its sample, and the 2014 Delhi study documented it earlier. It is a real constraint on women's economic participation, with real costs to the women affected and to the economy.

The objection here is to the precision claimed, not to the phenomenon described.

In short

One urban online survey of 4,262 women cannot describe all Indian women, and its cost finding measured what women would pay for safety — not what they do pay. The underlying barrier is well documented; these two numbers overstate what the evidence establishes.