This paper analyzes the factors influencing female labor force participation (FLFP) in rural Prayagraj, using primary survey data of 414 women and a binary logistic regression model. The paper defines FLFP according to ILO/NSSO standards, FLFP includes women who are either working or looking for work. The empirical model links participation to age and its square (with age in quadratic form),t years of schooling, income level, marital status, caste, and number of kids. The results are based on Huber-White robust standard errors. The results show a clear life-cycle pattern: the predicted chance of participation follows a hump-shaped curve, going up through the twenties and thirties, peaking at about 38 years old, and then going down. A high level of education is a strong predictor; all other factors being constant, each extra year of school raises the odds of participation by about 6–7 percent. The negative slope in household income is consistent with the income effect, which indicates that women from higher-income households are less likely to engage in employment. It is consistent with an income effect in a context where better-off rural households face limited access to high-quality, white-collar employment for women. There is a clear disparity in participation rates by caste, with women from OBC and SC/ST households having significantly higher odds of participation than General-category women. This suggests that disadvantaged groups have a stronger economic necessity to participate. In contrast, after controlling for age, education, income, and caste, there are no strong independent effects of marital status or total children on fertility rates, suggesting that working and non-working women have relatively comparable patterns of having children. The findings underscore the central role of human capital, household resources, and social stratification in shaping rural women’s labour supply, and point to the importance of education-oriented and caste-sensitive policy interventions.