Gender Pay Gap High As Men Continue To Dominate
Gender Gap in India has narrowed only by one per cent from 20 per cent in 2017, according to the Monster salary Index for 2018, high- lighting the key aspects of the gender pay gap.
Gender Pay Gap
The survey data from 2018 indicates that the current gender pay gap in India stands at 19 per cent, where men (Rs 242.49) earned Rs 46.19 more in comparison to women (Rs 196.3).
Gender Pay Gap & Tenure
The gender pay gap for the tenure groups 0-2 years and 3-5 years remains moderate, with females earning respectively 3 per cent and 5 per cent less than male workers; however, the gender pay gap widens to 10 per cent with 6-10 years of experience and a further 15 per cent in the 10+ years tenure.
Abhijeet Mukherjee, CEO, Monster.com, APAC & Gulf, said, “The narrowing of the gender pay gap by just one per cent is not just a cause for concern, but a reminder to genuinely introspect if we are doing enough. It becomes pivotal to galvanise forces across corporates and industries to work towards gender pay parity.’’
Paulien Osse, Director Wage Indicator Foundation, said: “Our intent through this extensive research is to empower recruiters and job seekers to analyse salaries from the prism of gender. It is a credible platform that provides views across a broad spectrum of industry domains, experience as well as functional groups.”
Women of India Inc. survey
Another survey by Monster.com aimed at understanding the working women of India and their workplace concerns broadly was categorised under the parameters of diversity, career growth, and safety from over 3,000 working women and men.
Stark Discrimination at Work
As high as 60 per cent of the working women felt that they are discriminated at work. The most nota- ble form of discrimination is the perception that women are less serious about work once they are married (47 per cent). About 46 per cent of women feel that maternity leads to a perception that they will quit, while the same per- centage of women also believe that there is a notion that women can’t put the same number of hours as men.
Not Just Need-based, Women Have a Desire to Work
In terms of the reasons to work, more than half of the women respondents are driven by the desire to work, rather than a need. Collectively, over 50 per cent of women say their main reason to work is personal fulfillment and inclination to contribute to family income.
Top Guys Need to Walk the Talk Majority of the respondents at 68 per cent (which includes both women and men) feel that gender parity needs to be a top priority for their organisations. However, over one-third of the working women feel that even if it is the top priority for senior management, they do not walk the talk.
Another notable point is that 72 per cent of men advocate that both men and women should receive equal opportunities in the workplace. Over one-third of men also feel that organisations should put more efforts towards gender diversity.
Maternity: Career-break or career-brake?
Men and women feel that policy intervention like the Maternity Bill gives ample time to new mothers to adjust to their new life and return to work without impacting their careers. However, India Inc. still falls behind when it comes to providing additional support for women, who are coming back after their maternity leave as 53.17 per cent of women confirm that their organisation does not offer flexible work structure. Notably, ‘ lack of proper childcare’ emerged as one of the key top challenges for both women and men.
Men Too Talking About Gender Equality
What’s been an eye-opener is that 51 per cent of men confirm that they can be effective advocates for the change of gender initiative programmes at the workplace. However, almost 44 per cent of women feel that men are gender-equality allies only in private (and not in public) because they fear being judged by their male peers. About 38 per cent of women also feel that men simply don’t know what to say or do when it comes to addressing issues of gender equality.
