Despite liberalization of the economy and technological advancement, India is lagging far behind other countries in terms of the Female Labour Force Participation Rate. The opening up of the economy has attracted huge foreign investment and created number of new types of jobs. In recent decades, India has enjoyed economic and demographic conditions that ordinarily would lead to rising female labour-force participation rates. Yet National Sample Survey (NSS) data for India show that labour force participation rates of women aged 25-54 (including primary and subsidiary status) have fallen substantially. The present paper tries to explore the social and cultural reasons behind this phenomenon.