Women's Workplace Rights Under the New Labour Codes: Progress and Challenges

India's consolidation of twenty-nine central labour enactments into four Labour Codes, brought into force on 21 November 2025, is the most extensive restructuring of Indian labour law since Independence. This article examines whether the Codes advance women's workplace rights or merely redistribute regulatory responsibility. Using a doctrinal methodology supported by secondary data, it compares the earlier regime with the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 across five dimensions: equal remuneration and non-discrimination, working hours and night work, maternity and childcare, representation and grievance redress, and coverage and enforcement. The findings show real progress: a statutory bar on gender discrimination in wages and recruitment, consent-based access to night work and all categories of employment, a continued maternity and crèche framework, and women's representation in grievance committees. The study also identifies structural challenges: heavy reliance on delegated rules that vary across States, threshold-based coverage that excludes small establishments, a shift towards facilitator-led compliance that may dilute enforcement, the uncertain position of domestic, home-based and platform workers, limited attention to unpaid care work, and the absence of a statutory link to ILO Convention No. 190. The article concludes that the Codes' promise will be realised only through rights-oriented rules, credible enforcement and wider coverage, and offers specific recommendations.