Developing countries including India seem to be characterized by a lack of focus on workplace gender gap research. The primary reason for this is the low status accorded to women and women’s issues in our country. Traditionally, the sex ratio in India has always been biased against women. According to the 2017 “Gender Gap Report”, India ranks as low as 108 out of 144 countries on the gender equality scale.
Women in India constitute only about 32% of the total working population in the organized sector; while the rest working women population are cramped in the informal sector with almost no social security benefits and lower job security. In the recent Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 2017 in Hyderabad, Ivanka Trump, advisor to US President Donald Trump, addressed the need for more women to join our workforce in her keynote speech. She mentions “Just consider, if India closes the labor force gender gap by half,
your economy could grow by over $150 billion in the next three years.”
So what are the causes behind this issue of workforce gender-gap? Why is it that so many well-educated women who are full of potential are sitting at their homes?
One of the widely prevalent, yet less discussed problems is that many women are experiencing the work-family conflict in their lives. As a number of women in India are still fulfilling multiple roles as caregivers, employees, spouse and a homemaker without realizing that they are assuming greater burden than necessary. Women at work often assume that they are left with no choice, which is clearly a wrong notion.
Work-family conflict, or rather more commonly described as “work-life balance” is a very newly recognized conflict in India. The working wives face challenges due to their multiple role involvements which disturbs other people’s expectations and their great range of demands. However, under the patriarchal trends of inherited gender norms, married women find themselves torn between expectations and suffer from guilt. ‘Guilt’ that tells them maybe they are neglecting their children and home.
This mental dilemma and role conflict are often negatively related to job involvement, job satisfaction and participation in decision making. Sheryl Sandberg, COO at Facebook famously says, “Don’t leave before you leave”, referring to the issue of women being mentally absent at their work often leading to a lowered attitude of thriving towards success.
Yet another issue that we need to tackle is the fewer percentage of women rejoining after their maternity leave. Although the Maternity Benefit Act, 2017 allows paid leave from 12 weeks onwards to 26 weeks; the larger proportion of women in the informal workforce remains unaddressed.
The Indian Express reports that pregnant women in informal sectors are fired on flimsy grounds.
After the pregnancy period is over, often these women are not ready to take up the elusive challenge of work-life balance and end up taking prolonged breaks. At their return, they are questioned on their capability to juggle multiple demands by the seniors. The companies are also quite reluctant to hire them back.
Further, most companies in India lack family-friendly policies such as flextime, crèche for children at the workspace or even the basic transport facilities. Complicating this matter is the lack of support from in-laws and manifested marital discord in the dual-earning couples. Indian workplace policies are slow to catch up with our socio-economic realities. And with shocking statistics like – almost ⅔ female population of our country not working, we are a major setback for economic growth. Not only that we are also missing out on a huge pool of human resources in the industries.
