Assessing the Contribution of MGNREGA toward SDG-5 and SDG-8: Women’s Empowerment and Decent Work in Rural India

Abstract

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), enacted in 2005, remains the world’s largest rights-based public employment programme and a central instrument of India’s rural livelihood architecture. While its income and employment effects are extensively documented, its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-specifically SDG-5 (Gender Equality) and SDG-8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth)-has rarely been assessed through an integrated, quantifiable framework. This study addresses that gap by developing a Composite MGNREGA–SDG Performance Index (MSPI) to evaluate the programme’s joint contribution to women’s economic empowerment and decent work at the national level between 2021-22 and 2024-25. Drawing exclusively on official secondary data from the MGNREGA Management Information System, the Ministry of Rural Development’s At-a-Glance reports, and parliamentary records, the analysis applies descriptive statistics, trend analysis, and Min-Max normalisation with equal dimensional weighting to construct the index. The findings reveal that MGNREGA’s aggregate SDG performance rose to a peak in 2023-24 (MSPI = 0.829), propelled by the highest recorded share of women person-days (58.9%) alongside robust decent-work indicators, before declining in 2024-25 (MSPI = 0.661) as employment intensity, hundred-day completion, and aggregate person-days contracted even as wage rates continued to rise. These divergent trajectories suggest that gains in gender inclusion have proven more durable than gains in employment provision, exposing a structural tension between the programme’s distributive and demand-absorptive functions. The study contributes a transparent, replicable monitoring tool that policymakers and researchers can extend to track progress toward the 2030 Agenda, and recommends targeted measures to stabilise employment intensity without eroding the programme’s strong record on gender participation.