Disparity report underscores gender pay gap in India

[00:00:02] Hello and welcome to All Indians Matter. I am Ashraf Engineer.

[00:00:08] The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2023 ranked India 127 out of 146 countries

[00:00:15] in terms of gender parity. This, believe it or not, is an improvement of 1.4% and

[00:00:20] 8 positions over the previous year. In comparison, Bangladesh was ranked 59 while China was

[00:00:25] at 107, Nepal at 116, Sri Lanka at 115 and Bhutan at 103. What's saddening is that,

[00:00:33] since the first edition of the report in 2006, parity has advanced only 4.1%. At this rate,

[00:00:39] closing the overall gender gap in India will require 131 years. The Gender Disparity

[00:00:44] Calculation takes into account many factors from educational attainment to participation

[00:00:48] in the economy as well as political empowerment. Also playing a very important role is the

[00:00:53] Gender Pay Gap.

[00:01:04] So what exactly is the Gender Pay Gap? In essence, it is the average difference between the pay

[00:01:08] received by working men and women but it's not as simple as that overall. It is more

[00:01:13] nuanced than most people believe. There are two different factors to take into account

[00:01:17] – the unadjusted pay gap and the adjusted pay gap. The former simply differentiates

[00:01:22] between the average wages of the two genders. The latter, however, takes into account

[00:01:27] such as occupation, education and job experience. If you consider the unadjusted pay gap, the

[00:01:32] difference is far greater. For example, in the US, the adjusted pay gap is 80% to 90%.

[00:01:38] That is, women receive only 80-90% of the salary men receive for the same work. However,

[00:01:43] the unadjusted figure is a much lower 78%. The variance is due to the difference

[00:01:48] in the number of men and women who work and also due to how many years they work

[00:01:52] and the number of breaks taken for reasons such as the birth of a child.

[00:01:55] In India, the situation is even more complicated due to socioeconomic and structural reasons.

[00:02:01] The girl child is often not educated or made to drop out after a few years in school.

[00:02:05] Those who are educated are often not allowed to work. Those who do work often take extended

[00:02:10] maternity leaves or to care for other family members. These factors and more lead to

[00:02:14] women falling behind men when it comes to salaries.

[00:02:18] According to the Monster Salary Index published in March 2019, women in India earned 19% less

[00:02:23] than men. The median gross hourly salary for men in 2018 was Rs.242.49 and Rs.196.3

[00:02:31] for women. This was true across industries. IT services, for instance, showed a pay

[00:02:34] gap of 26%, while in manufacturing, men earned 24% more than women. It's worse

[00:02:40] across the unorganized sector where women are routinely paid way less than men.

[00:02:44] Till the social stigma against women working and the widespread social injustice against

[00:02:49] women is not done away with, the gender pay gap won't close.

[00:02:52] While many would laud India's climb on the gender gap report, there isn't a lot

[00:02:56] to cheer about. India needs significant improvement on all key markers – economic

[00:03:00] participation, educational attainment, health and political empowerment. One half

[00:03:05] of the population lags behind on all parameters not contributing to the economy or society

[00:03:10] as a whole. When it comes to political empowerment, women have representation of

[00:03:14] over 40% in local governance thanks to reservations. However, they don't exist at the highest

[00:03:18] level – only 15.1% of parliamentarians are women. The Women's Reservation Bill,

[00:03:24] which seeks to reserve 33% of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women,

[00:03:28] is now pending for almost three decades. As far as economic opportunities concerned,

[00:03:32] India ranks near the bottom with less than 40% parity. There are rises in wage

[00:03:37] parity and income, but shares of women in senior positions and technical roles

[00:03:40] have fallen. Girls must have access to education at all levels, but they also need paid work.

[00:03:45] Allowing them access to job-focused education could be a way of rising up on all indices,

[00:03:50] including health and survival. It's precisely because this did not exist that black swan

[00:03:54] events like the COVID-19 pandemic were supremely harder on women. Other than the

[00:03:59] high mortality, their labour participation has plummeted, reducing not just household incomes,

[00:04:03] but also many of the social gains achieved over the decades. But let's return to the

[00:04:08] The World Economic Forum report seems to indicate a slipping trend globally, but it has felt more

[00:04:13] acutely in countries like India where the situation was already dismal.

[00:04:16] The report cites LinkedIn data from 163 countries to show that women account for

[00:04:21] 41.9% of the workforce in 2023, but their share in senior leadership positions is only

[00:04:27] 32.2%. This number was rising by 1% per year globally for the past eight years,

[00:04:32] but the trend regressed in 2023 to 2021 levels. The report also underlines a persistent digital

[00:04:38] divide as one of the causes of inequality of opportunity. Enrolment in technical skills,

[00:04:42] such as artificial intelligence and big data, is significantly higher for men.

[00:04:46] Happily, when women do enrol, they usually attain proficiency faster than men.

[00:04:50] Gender disparity is a multifaceted challenge, but broadly there has to be a greater push

[00:04:55] for economic participation as well as achieving gender parity and leadership in both business

[00:05:00] and government. There can be no doubt that the economic breakthrough India needs requires

[00:05:05] creativity as well as varied ideas and skills. It's not going to be achieved by keeping out

[00:05:10] half the population.