In the quarter ending June, India’s GDP grew at 5.7%, the weakest rate of growth in three years. While this is being blamed on different disruptive reforms, we are conveniently overlooking a massive economic loss on account of lower participation of women in the labor force. According to the IMF, higher participation of women in the workforce can increase India’s GDP by 27%.
Currently, India stands at the 87th position in the Global Gender Gap Index with 27% participation of women in the labor force – one of the lowest in the world. It is the only developing country which has witnessed a 10% decline in women’s participation in the labor force in the last decade.
In spite of the growing percentage (42%) of graduating women, only 24% of women are at the entry level positions. Nearly 50% of them drop out between junior and mid-levels, compared to 29% across Asia. Women hold only 7.7% of board seats and just 2.7% of board chairs in India. They lose representation rapidly as they move up the ladder. We believe greater percentage of women at leadership levels will help build more roles models, women friendly policies, practices, infrastructure and mind sets that will inspire other women to join and stay in the workforce.
Without doubt, a major untapped reservoir of talent lies in India’s underutilized female population. Growing talent shortage is a concern for 48% of employers in India. Many complain about the lack of qualified women. In response to the government’s mandate of at least one woman on the Board, 93% of BSE and 97% of NSE listed companies have at least one woman director. However, many women sit on multiple boards. We believe we are not looking hard enough and are not investing in building a leadership pipeline of women leaders. The potential for economic growth is tremendous only if we can find a solution to this challenge and do so soon.
To gain momentum and drive change, women have been asked to lean in and they are definitely doing so, more than before. But the environment has not changed sufficiently for them to overcome the hurdles to join, stay and rise to leadership roles.
Hiring, retention and growth of women – all contribute to the missing women from the workforce.
The first challenge is hiring. There is an issue on the supply as well as demand side. While many educated women are reluctant to join the workforce due safety concerns, to pressure from parents to marry or their own conditioning, companies lack gender equitable hiring practices to create a demand pull. Job posting vocabulary, all male interview panels, lack of women role models are all deterrents for women to compete for jobs. Progressive firms have focused on gender parity in hiring by introducing gender targets, re-defining job descriptions to make them gender neutral, instituting gender balanced selection panels, training the interviewers against unconscious bias.
The second biggest challenge is retention in the initial 5-7 years. The reasons are both – internal and external. Women harbor the same stereotypes that men have and often consider themselves the primary caregivers. According to the OECD, in India, men devote 36 minutes a day to unpaid care responsibilities as opposed to women who spend six hours. Women do not see enough women rising to the top or seeking opportunities to be independent, especially if their family income is adequate. Those who decide to stay, often give up aspiring for senior roles in the face of unequal opportunities, lack of mentors and self-pressure to be perfect both at work and at home. Externally, work practices – such as focus on face time vs. output, insufficient maternity benefits and unavailability of childcare infrastructure are reflections of biases that impact women. We need more elastic workplaces that include flexi-time, work-from-home and part-time. We also need to be innovative to “relaunch” professional women back into the workforce after temporary career breaks to nurture the next generation.
The third major challenge is equitable career progression. Many high potential women who stay on in the workforce and aspire for leadership roles fail to reach these levels, due to inherent weakness and perceived shortfall. Women’s own reluctance to network, take risks and ask for what they feel they deserve, combined with the perception that they are not decisive and lack the drive needed for leadership roles prove to be barriers for their career progression. They often get overlooked for key roles, either because they are not known to the leadership team or “stereotype” roles of women come into play. Sometimes leaders in their effort to be considerate and protective of women, do disservice to gender parity.
None of the above diversity policies and practices can change numbers without honest leadership commitment. If K.V Kamath had not been a pioneer in building a pipeline of women leaders in ICICI and choosing a woman to succeed him, the banking sector would not have associated women with stressful and successful CEO roles!
But leaving the change to one leader will only take us so far.
Co-authored with Ipsita Kathuria, Published @The Hindu Business Line
Nikita Singla 