No place for women

A hostile public environment adds to workplace patriarchy

India’s chronically low female labour force participation rate (LFPR) has been posited as an indication of the depth of patriarchy in Indian society and prejudice in Indian business. These views are valid, with recent surveys pointing to the alpha “male breadwinner” paradigm, disproportionate pressures on women to shoulder household work, and a wage gap where men corner 82 per cent of labour income. All these factors are at play in a recent analysis by consultancy EY India, which analysed hiring trends in 1,040 listed firms for 2022-23. But the study also unwittingly pointed to a critical public governance failure to create an enabling environment for working women.

The EY India study shows that India Inc is more diverse as job profiles move from blue-collar and clerical-level to white-collar and executive. It found that 23 per cent of the seven million permanent employees (in managerial or administrative roles) were women. This itself is a shockingly low number, given that more women have been enrolling for higher education than men since 2017-18, suggesting that qualifications cannot be considered a deterrent to hiring women. As expected, it is the younger and more competitive industries such as information technology (IT) and financial services that demonstrate less chauvinism. Women accounted for 34 per cent of the employees and 42 per cent of the workers in IT. For financial services the figures were 23 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively. When it comes to lower-rung jobs, however, the picture worsens appreciably. Here, women account for just 11 per cent of the permanent workers, a number that skews upwards only because of the textiles industry, where 42 per cent of the permanent workers are women.

Much of this reflects the lack of support structures in terms of maternity benefits, creches, rest rooms, and safe transport, investments that small and medium companies, the majority of Indian enterprises, are reluctant to make because they operate on wafer-thin margins. It is possible that the number of women workers would bulk up if companies in the mostly unlisted electronics industry were taken into account. Like textiles, its hiring preferences tilt towards women because of the intricate nature of assembly operations — for which women are typically socialised. But larger firms such as engineering companies, which can afford to make women-friendly investments, have been slow to do so. As ESG (environmental, social, and governance) concepts gain traction, several firms have chosen to express their intention to invest in hiring more women.

But the structural operational weaknesses that deter hiring women are accentuated by the short point that India is not a safe place for them. Companies cannot rely on public transport or law-enforcement agencies to ensure women’s safety in public places, let alone the provision of quality childcare policies. These deficiencies impose extra compensatory expenses on enterprises, increasing the costs of hiring women. It is notable that most of Southeast Asia records a female LFPR significantly higher than India. For Vietnam, a competing nation in the China-Plus-One race, the female LFPR is over 60 per cent. All these countries enable women to rely on public infrastructure to go about their jobs and are demonstrably reaping socio-economic benefits. India too could get there if the political discourse shifted from the old paradigms of caste and religion to the much more practical one of gender parity.