Urban women’s employment grows with higher education levels. Yet policy gaps, corporate biases, and domestic constraints persist. Removing barriers drives inclusive growth.
Only in 5% of families, the career of females takes priority.
Dr. Vidya Mahambare, Professor of Economics & Director (Research and Fellow Program in Management)
I’ll highlight the key findings of the research report: Women at Work: India’s Gender Employment Paradox, prepared by Great Lakes (GLIM), Chennai. In the digital copy of the report, you’ll find more detailed information.
Our focus is solely on urban areas, excluding rural regions. Over the past few years, we’ve observed a significant increase in women’s employment in urban India. Traditionally, urban India has had lower rates of female employment compared to rural areas, primarily because rural employment is heavily concentrated in agriculture and related sectors. We’ve seen roughly 10% increase in women’s employment since 2017-18, and this growth spans across all age groups – women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. This is a very positive trend.
High Urban Women Unemployment
Despite this progress, women’s urban employment remains around 30%. Many women engaged in home-based earning activities may not report their involvement in surveys. The positive aspect is that urban jobs tend to be of higher quality, with women earning more compared to their rural counterparts. About half of them hold regular salaried positions, which is a considerable improvement.
Within different age brackets, we see that women in their 40s have the highest employment rate of 38%. This likely correlates with children growing older, allowing more women to rejoin the workforce. While every age group has witnessed increased participation, the fact that only 30% of urban women are employed signifies that a substantial number remain outside the workforce. In absolute terms, this translates to approximately 89 million women in urban India not currently employed. Compared to global standards, India lags behind; even in other developing nations, female employment rates often range from 60% to 70%.
Of these, around 19 million are highly educated women—graduates and above—who are currently unemployed. This represents a significant untapped potential, not only for women’s empowerment but also for the economy as a whole. Various reports have quantified this potential, estimating the GDP increase possible if these women were employed.
Parity in Higher Education
A positive trend is that the potential for increased female participation is significant. In fact, in the early 20s age group, the proportion of women in higher education is slightly higher than men. Roughly 30% of both men and women in this age group are pursuing higher education, indicating near-complete gender parity in urban India.
Another positive development from a labour market perspective is the trend of delayed marriages for both men and women. Around the year 2000, roughly 60% of women aged 20-24 were married. This proportion has significantly decreased to below 40%. While marriage remains largely universal in India, the trend of delayed marriages coupled with increased education provides single women with greater opportunities to participate in the labour market and secure meaningful employment before starting families.
Though there is prevalence of women in political leadership roles such as Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Chief Ministers, this has not necessarily translated into women empowerment at lower levels. The majority believe that women have higher unemployment, but in reality, men in their 20s have higher unemployment rates. This suggests that we need to create jobs for both women and men. Among the highly educated workforce, women’s unemployment is indeed higher than men’s and more so, in the early 20s, indicating a need for more quality jobs.
Jobs for Men & Women Needed
Although men’s unemployment is higher in their early 20s, virtually every man is employed by their late 20s. Societal norms dictate that men must work, especially as they approach marriage, leading them to take whatever jobs are available, resulting in nearly 100% male employment. Women’s job creation cannot come at the expense of men. We need jobs for both. Therefore, for the highly educated workforce in their early 20s, we need significantly more jobs to avoid a diversity backlash, just like what we witness globally.
If we compare China and India, we have lot of demographic dividend. But India will age in another 20 years. Even if China is aging and their average age of workforce is increasing, China has lot more women employed as compared to India.
A majority of educated couples reported having equal career priorities. However, men’s career takes precedence. Only in 5% of families did the female career take priority. This is not unexpected, given that many of these are young couples with small children, where the mother often assumes primary responsibility.
Drop in Return, Post Marriage
In couples, 17% women earn more. 65% of women believe career progression is different for women as compared to men, even when the merit is same. In urban India, around 44% of single women work -that is, before they get married. After marriage, there is a significant drop among all married young women. Only 33% work after marriage and with the arrival of a child, only 20% work. In rural India, this doesn’t happen, maybe because work is much more flexible there like in farm work, where they can carry the baby as well. In urban India, jobs are essentially regular salaried type and full time.
In Corporates, we have policies like maternity leave and child care facilities. But in Western countries, there is child care in the school itself, after school hours. The advantage is the child doesn’t have to be transported elsewhere.
Remote Work
We conducted another survey on remote work on the perceptions about stress level and productivity. One in two women reported higher productivity while working from home and the stress level is essentially lower. However, 46% are worried about longer work hours. Here, for women who work from home, it’s a dual job-managing office work as well as home. Around 40% of women believe that they do not have equal chance of promotion despite doing all the work and being productive, if they work from home. Corporates can look at how to overcome these perceptions.
In India, a large majority of women move, even in urban areas, after marriage, and it becomes very difficult to hold on to jobs. The whole job process has to be started again. Things like these are unspoken barriers. Women migrating for employment is only 3%. That also suggests there are barriers for single women to come to cities and stay in a safe environment. Tamil Nadu state government is doing lot of work by providing women’s hostel and making them safe and clean. Commuting to workplace is another major issue.
Prevalence of Domestic Violence
A counter intuitive finding from our study is that women who are employed face higher domestic violence. They have higher earning power, bargaining power and decision making power at home. They have more mobility. All that is positive. Surprisingly, 32% of women who are employed, justify violence against them compared to women who are not in paid work. We believe that from a very young age, women are often forced into societal roles. The ideal image of a mother or wife is thrust upon them, and if they fail to meet this ideal, they often blame themselves for not fulfilling these expectations.
We need to discuss and find ways to liberate women from these unrealistic expectations. We never hear about ‘Superman awards,’ but we do have awards for ‘super women,’ which only adds to the pressure on women. Perhaps we should stop these awards, as they impose excessive pressure. To sum up, we need quality job creation and collaboration between government, corporations, and society. Men are equal stakeholders in this process, and if we want to see real change, we must work together.
When women rise, the world rises with them.
Suresh Raman, Vice President & Regional Head of TCS Chennai
When women rise, the world rises with them. We’ve witnessed this in the case of Western world. Growth fuels our energy, driving prosperity for ourselves, our organisations, and our country.
Organisations, governments, and individuals must have the right intent to do the right things. This includes recruitment, providing learning environments, and investing time and effort for the upliftment of women. Invest in education, online courses, and learning opportunities. Both individuals and organisations must invest in personal and professional growth.
We must ensure there are no disparities and integrate women into organisations. This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “Accelerate Action,” reminds us of the strides women have made and the challenges they still face.
ACTION
Let’s make “ACTION” an acronym: A: Advocate for equity by ensuring fair hiring, promotions, and compensation structures; C: Cultivate inclusive leadership by addressing unconscious biases and building diverse leadership teams; T: Transform workplace policies to support flexible work arrangements and parental leave; I: Invest in women’s career growth; O: Open doors for representation; N: Normalize work-life integration.
In today’s mobile and internet world, work-life integration is crucial. Technology has given us flexibility, but it’s important to ensure equity in all industries. In TCS, we follow a five-pillar strategy for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our focus is on representation, enablement, engagement, and creating a culture where employees can interact and learn from each other.
Women need to build the right skills, especially during career breaks. Organisations must provide learning opportunities for them to rejoin the workforce. High-impact roles and leadership opportunities should be based on potential, not past patterns. Opening doors for representation in boardrooms and executive positions is important. A tripartite effort from individuals, companies, and the government is essential for making things happen. Equity, more than diversity and inclusion, is the foundation for progress.
A Higher Stake in ‘C’ Suites
Most notably, women today make up 29% of C-suite positions, compared with 17% in 2015. However, progress has been slower at the entry and manager levels. McKinsey and others talk about the ‘broken rung’ phenomenon, where fewer women are promoted to first-level leadership, limiting the pipeline to higher-level positions. As an organisation, we’ve seen at least 65% representation increasing at leadership levels, middle, and junior levels.
Workplace integration has improved, with more visible conversations about mental health and well-being. Yet, women continue to handle a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic labour, leading to burnout and career drop-offs. We need a culture that supports balance and progress.
WLM: Complex and Intuitive
On a lighter note, in today’s world of LLM and SLM, I coin the term WLM—Women’s Language Model. It’s more complex, comprehensive, adaptive, and intuitive. AI processes fast, but women process data faster. Women multitask more than a parallel processor and perform tasks faster than an Nvidia chip.
Remember, the first computer programmer was Ada Lovelace, and the first bug was discovered by a woman. We’re on the right track, but individuals, corporates, and governments need to invest. The future looks bright and shiny. It’s up to us, men and women, to power progress and shape the future of women. Women need to support each other in career growth. Many successful women had male mentors, but we need more women mentors.
The tech industry has taken the lead, but there’s still a long way to go. AI will help further, and we need to live with AI for that. I’m proud to be part of the Tata Group, which had illustrious women like Lady Meherbai Tata, who made the Child Marriage Restraint Act possible in India in the early 1900s, and Lady Navajbai Tata, the first woman director on the board of Tata Sons.
This seminar is a call to action, a platform to exchange ideas, share solutions, and commit to creating inclusive and equitable workplaces. Let’s ensure a future where every human can lead, innovate, and thrive without limitations. Let’s continue this journey of powering progress and shaping a future where everyone, regardless of gender, can thrive.
Everybody faces unconscious bias, irrespective of gender.
Conversation with Priti Arora, President, Intelligence, CRISIL
Dr. Vidya Mahambare: Priti and I were colleagues at CRISIL for several years. Priti, if I’m right, this is your 25th year with CRISIL. Over the years, you have donned several hats, and now you are President of CRISIL Intelligence. Can you tell us how you have felt the importance of sponsorship from top leadership and how important it is to move the diversity and inclusion agenda?
Priti Arora: Sponsorship from the top is the topmost enabler for success in this area. It sets the tone for the organisation. Leaders play a very critical role in how that cascades across people, managers, and teams at large. Secondly, it decides on the investments within a corporate setup and at a larger community level. It helps to modify behaviours and evolve the culture of the organisation.
At CRISIL, for performance evaluation of leaders, we use the balanced scorecard methodology. Diversity has been a very important talent agenda from a strategic level. At the board level, we constantly review how we are progressing, what we are doing, and what initiatives we are taking. For instance, whenever a woman employee leaves after 9 PM from a location, even if they have their own vehicles, our security guard would write their name, address, and mobile number. They will call and check if the employee has reached home. It’s a matter of just showing that we care.
We have buddy programs for returning mothers or those seeking second career options. It’s not so much about the flexible roles or the easier roles. It’s also about making the role interesting. It’s not men versus women whenever we talk about diversity and equity. It has to be everybody together. In the US, we have seen recently that the language of D&I is changing due to the new administration’s impact.
Dr. Vidya Mahambare: What are your own personal experiences with respect to unconscious biases?
Priti Arora: Everybody faces unconscious bias, irrespective of gender. I started my career in the 2000s. I joined the ratings business, first in Brazil, which was primarily about doing a lot of factory visits on the ground to meet the management and understand the kind of business they do. I would go to newspaper factories, fertilizer factories, and so on. Probably, I was the lone woman in the room and definitely in the minority. People used to look at me in a biased way, thinking why some senior person had not come.
I can give you another example. I was 8 or 9 years into my role. I was married and had an eight-month-old son. CRISIL decided to set up a new credit business unit in Mumbai. I got to know through a conversation that a new team was being built for this. I wondered why nobody had approached me, though I had relevant credit experience. I went and spoke to my manager, and he said, “The job requires you to move between cities. We thought you might not be interested.” Then I had a conversation with my husband. Of course, the ecosystem is so critical, and we decided to move along with my eight-month-old son. But the point is there was an unconscious bias to assume that somebody may be interested or may not be interested.
Therefore, having conversations is extremely important. Let’s not assume people’s likes and dislikes. When you’re talking about achieving any organisational priorities or goals, it has to align with an individual’s goal and growth as well. In those days, I used to travel to the US for probably a week or two and leave my son with the grandparents. Once, my son had to travel alone without either of us, and I used the services of airport assistance. The woman security guard at the airport looked at me strangely and asked, “Are you leaving your child alone to travel?” That made me go on a guilt trip.
Here are some tips based on my experience. You need to believe in yourself. You need to build your self-confidence. No one is going to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself. Second, invest in yourself and stay relevant. You have to back your confidence with capability and relevance, especially in a time and era when technology is evolving so rapidly. Workplaces are changing. Expectations are changing. Lastly, don’t give up before you need to. Don’t overthink the responsibilities, both personally and professionally. Be self-aware. Be clear and value yourself. If the company values you, they will listen to you.
