The female labour force participation rate rose from 23·3 per cent in 2017-18 to 37 per cent in 2022-23 — option 2.

What the figure means. The Labour Force Participation Rate is the share of the population that is either working or actively looking for work. These figures come from the Periodic Labour Force Survey, conducted by the National Statistical Office, on usual status for persons aged 15 years and above. A rise of nearly fourteen percentage points in five years is very large by international standards, and the Economic Survey and the government cited it repeatedly.

What lies behind the rise. Most of the increase came from rural areas and from women reported as self-employed, particularly as unpaid helpers in household enterprises and in own-account farming. Better rural infrastructure, wider access to bank accounts and credit through self-help groups, and the growth of allied activities such as dairying all contributed. Economists also point to a measurement effect: the PLFS questionnaire probes more carefully than earlier surveys for work that women do within the household enterprise and that used to go unrecorded.

Why it matters. India’s female participation had been unusually low for its income level and had actually been falling for two decades before 2017-18, an outcome economists called the “puzzle” of Indian female employment. The reversal since then is therefore significant, though the quality of the work — how much of it is paid, regular and outside agriculture — remains the central question.

Reading the options. Two of them begin at 23·3 per cent, so the starting figure is not what separates them; the end value is. Fixing 37 per cent for 2022-23 in memory is what settles the question.

Hence, the answer is from 23.3% to 37%.