By Prachi Laddha, Consultant
Increasing women’s labour force participation by 10 percentage points could add $770 billion to India’s GDP by 2025 (McKinsey, 2018) – and if women participated in the economy at par with men, its GDP would go up by 60% or $2.9 trillion in the same timeframe.
But the truth is that women in India, in most parts, are viewed as second-class citizens, who are confined to strict gender roles, often confined in their homes, and treated as properties of men instead of autonomous human beings. Even when they are in the workplace, they are treated as lesser beings – trained not to speak up at meetings, trained to be subservient.
Gender inequality presents itself as a major issue in India – and the challenges in India are very unique. In 2019, India ranked 95 among 129 countries in global gender equality index; women fare worse than men in all areas – social, economic, political, education as well as health.
This article talks about three challenges of gender equality in India – the country’s culture and societal framework, violence and abuse against women and how women are seen and treated at the workplace.
The first challenge is India’s culture and societal framework – women in India in most parts are seen as second-class citizens, who are confined to strict gender roles, often confined in their homes, and treated as properties of men instead of autonomous human beings. Of course, these gender roles affect the men too – they are seen as the sole bread-earners of the house and have the responsibility to run their families (which are often joint families) single-handedly. They are expected to be authoritative, ambitious and unemotional. A woman’s “place” in the Indian family structure is at home – restricted to cooking, cleaning and tending to children. They are not seen as decision-makers in their own homes and in some instances not even allowed to step out of their houses.
Of course, this in itself paints a rather gloomy picture, and let me assure you that the situation has changed quite a lot over the last couple of decades, but the ingrained mentality remains. A survey on social attitudes in 2016 found that around 40-60% of men and women believe that married women should not work if the husband earns reasonably well. What’s even more shocking is that around 57% of adolescent boys and 53% of adolescent girls in India think it is alright for a man to beat or hit a woman if she hasn’t cooked well, if she back answers, if she doesn’t take the man’s permission before heading out or if she refuses to have sex (UNICEF, 2012). That’s the kind of mentality that India is dealing with. No wonder that 22% women in the country have experienced some form of spousal violence (Forbes India, 2019).
This brings me to the second challenge – violence and abuse against women. The wider problem of violence against women is another factor that is keeping women out of the economic, political and social arenas. A study by IndianSpend reveals that 26 crimes against women are reported every hour in India. Crimes against women show an upward trend, particularly brutal crimes such as rapes, dowry deaths, and honour killings. In most cases, this is the defining factor for many women to drop out of workforce or even lay low at homes because they fear both intimate spousal violence or a range of other crimes outside on the roads, trains and workplaces. In fact, as of 2019, India ranks 133rd amongst 167 countries in the Women Peace and Security Index.
The third challenge is how women are seen in the workplace – even if women do get to the stage of working, they are treated as lesser beings – trained not to speak up at meetings, trained to be subservient. In terms of statistics, only 23% of working-age women are currently in work compared to nearly 80% of men in India.
It is important to note that the higher education gap is closing, but this is not translating to an equal number of jobs for both. In 2019, women got only 37 out of every 100 new jobs created (Business Standard, 2019). A gender equal policy is seemingly missing in most of the Indian companies; women form less than 10% of the workforce in most of the Indian companies. In 2018 only 26% of surveyed companies had hired women in the top-five job roles in the past five years (Catalyst, 2018). These statistics show that there’s a real hiring problem in companies too. Company leaders and managers suffer from prejudice and stigmas around hiring and promoting women in the workplace. They still shy away from hiring women who are of a marriageable age and questions like what’s your family status are still asked in the interviews. In addition, women are not seen as leaders. Of India’s 158 largest companies, women hold only 15% of the board seats and only 6% of board chairs are women. In fact, they hold a mere 12.2% representation in the Parliament (Forbes India, 2019).
Moreover, for an Indian woman, the act of working is an expensive one – 17% of salary is lost to the wage gap penalty and 15% of the salary is lost to cover childcare. And that’s another reason why younger women would rather let their husbands and other men in their house work and rather tend to their children than to go out and get a job.
How do we increase the number of women in the workforce in India? We must address how we break cultural norms, violence against women and perceptions of women in the workplace in India. What can corporations and organisations do? What can I do, other young women in India, my father, my brother? I’ll be discussing the answer to these questions in next week’s article.
