India is the fastest growing economy in the world today. And, currently, there are more women than men in India’s population.
Yet….India is not really the best place in the world to be a woman today – atleast that’s what the numbers say.
Statistics and reports show that India’s women fare pretty poorly versus men on almost every parameter that measures and ranks the performance of different countries. While gender inequality is a global problem and no country has successfully bridged the gaps, India’s gender gaps are way above the average, and growing.
But these are the numbers we need to change, these are the gaps we need to bridge quickly and on priority. To enable this change, as a 1st step, we need to first acknowledge the extent of the problem at hand so that we can take specific and targeted actions to address the problems.
Here is a quick overview of the latest and updated number and statistics that show the status of women in India – a summary of global rankings, statistics and research findings from around the world:
Gender Gap Index by World Economic Forum: As per the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report, India has a 37% gender gap. In 2021, India ranked to 135 out of 146 countries (It ranked 140 in 2021 but out of 156 countries. It ranked 112 in 2020 and 2019). On the parameter of Economic Participation and Opportunity, India ranks 4th last (143 out of 146 countries)
Gap in Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP): India’s FLFP is just 20.3 % compared to the global average of 39.2% (World Bank data). Some reports also suggest that the FLFP has fallen further to 16% in 2020, following the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic.
Gender Inequality Index by the UN Human Development Report: India ranked 123 out of 189 countries in 2019 in the Gender Inequality Index, slightly higher than 130th rank in 2018 and its 127th rank in 2017
The Pay gap: Global Wage Report, 2018 by ILO noted that India has the World’s highest gender wage gap (among 73 countries) – where women are paid 34% less than men. This is more than double of the global average wage gap at 16% but lower than India’s 48% wage gap in 1993-94.
In 2021, Senior women executives in India on an average earn ₹85 for every ₹100 that male senior executives earn – The Glass Ceiling: Leadership Gender Balance ( a report by IIMA)
ADP’s study ‘People at Work 2021: A Global Workforce View’ noted that in India, during 2021, only 65 per cent of women received a pay rise or bonus for taking on extra responsibilities or a new role compared to 70 per cent of men.
Monster Salary Index (MSI) data from 2018 indicate 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),
The Leadership Gender Gap: In 2021, women held only 10% of management roles in Indian companies, compared to 31% Globally. Only 5% of CEOs in India are women, compared to 19.7% globally. (The Credit Suisse Gender 3000 in 2021)
The Boardroom Gender Gap – Women hold 17.1% of the board seats in India in 2021, compared to 19.7% of the board seats are held by women Globally (Deloitte Global’s Women in the boardroom report)
The Entrepreneurship Gender Gap: Women constitute only around 20% of total entrepreneurs in India, as compared to around 37% globally.
As per the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, in 2021 India ranked 18th out of 47 countries in terms of Female-Male TEA* Ratio (TEA is Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity )
Gender Gap in Parliament: In 2022, India ranked 142 in a list of 193 countries in terms of women’s representation in the lower or single house of parliament – 2ith women making up 12.3% of the Parliament – Inter-Parliamentary Union
The Wealth Gap: Women own just 20-30% of the US$6 trillion (Rs73 lakh crore) overall household wealth in India-much less than the global average of 40% – Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2018
The Mobile Gap: Indian men are 21% more likely to own a phone than women – GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report
Legal Gender Equality: As per “Women, Business and the Law 2022“, India scored 74.4 vs the global average score of 76.5 In terms of freedom of movement, laws affecting women’s decisions to work, and constraints related to marriage, India gets a perfect score.
However, when it comes to laws affecting women’s pay, laws affecting women’s work after having children, constraints on women starting and running a business, gender differences in property and inheritance, and laws affecting the size of a woman’s pension, India could consider reforms to improve legal equality for women.
Gap in Unpaid Care Work: As per NSO data, an average woman in India spends 19.5% of her time in domestic work or care-giving – vs men who spend just 2.5% of the 24-hour period on these activities. 81.2% women vs only 26.1% men are engaged in “unpaid domestic services for their household members” (in 2019). An Indian woman spends 243 minutes or a little over four hours a day on household chores, which is almost ten times the average 25 minutes for an Indian man.
Women in India do almost 10 times as much unpaid work as men but if you include domestic duties in the definition of work, women’s labour force participation rates shoots up to 81.7 percent, while men’s remains stagnant at 76 percent – Mind The Gap: The State of Employment in India, Oxfam 2019
Gaps in laws, social norms and practices – India scored 34% OECD’s “2019 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)” -a medium value. Among other things, the report notedpoor implementation of laws related to Sexual Harassment at Workplace and found that in practice Indian women continue to have limited access to land and benefits of workplace rights.
The Motherhood Penalty – Many women quit the workforce after having kids and various reports document that. 19.6 million women dropped off the workforce between 2004 and 2012, showed research by the World Bank. Just 18-34% women continue working after having kids, showed a BBC report.
State-Level Gender Gaps –
Several research reports find that none of India’s states are doing well on achieving gender goals:
1) NITI Aayog’s report highlighting all the states’ performance on their progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SGD) showed .most Indian states perform extremely poorly when it comes to achieving gender equality targets under SDG 5
The report ranked all states on targets and their performance varied between ’aspirant’ (0-49) scores to ’achiever’ (100).
– And all Indian states fell in the “red zone” (0-49 score).
– Only Kerala and Sikkim have fared slightly better by scoring a meager fifty out of hundred.
– Bihar, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh rank the lowest with scores less than 30.
2) Mckinsey Global Institute calculated a Female Empowerment Index that shows that most Indian states have moderate gender inequality and 6 states have high gender inequality. Mizoram is the closest to gender parity while Bihar is the fathest, the report found.
3) A research paper by ICRIER constructed a state-level “Patriarchy Index”that quantifies social and cultural norms using like low child sex ratio, low participation of women in household decisions and high spousal violence. Higher values of the index are indicative of higher levels of patriarchy in the state.
Analysis of the index shows:
- States with high levels of patriarchy are also states with high proportion of women out of the labour force with graduate degrees and above.
- The commonly cited “North-South divide” that demarcates areas of strong discrimination (northern states) from those with greater gender equality (southern states) may not really hold true. For instance, the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana fair equally badly as states like Haryana, Delhi and Bihar.
Ellenomics 