Gender mainstreaming in workplaces key to enabling more women in the workforce, say experts

According to the World Bank, India’s female labour force participation rate was 19.2% in 2021 , contributing 17% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Meanwhile, data from the Indian government show women workforce participation at around 25%. Both datapoints show that the number women in the (formal) workforce continues to remain low in India, especially for a nation dreaming of becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2025. So, how can India boost these numbers to power a She-economy and galvanise growth over the next few decades?

Deliberating this important topic at the virtual launch event of the ET Prime Women Leadership Awards 2023 were panellists Dr Nisha Taneja, a professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and a former consultant to the United Nations World Bank and the Asian Development Bank; Sairee Chahal, a serial entrepreneur, Founder of SHEROES—an online ecosystem for women, offering support, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities, content and community—and Mahila Money, a community neobank for women; Jayprakash JC, Founder, Director at Accrete Executive Search Pvt Ltd—a boutique executive search firm specialising in leadership hiring; and, Advaita Kala—author of the bestseller Almost Single and an award-winning screenwriter.

Together, they outlined the broader context of the reasons for the low labour participation rate of women in India, stressed upon why the country needs to adopt the lens of gender mainstreaming in all its economic activities and policy-level initiatives, both horizontally and vertically, and highlighted that there is a clear business-case for accelerating gender equality worldwide.

Emphasizing the importance of gender mainstreaming, the panellists elaborated that casting a gender lens

on the economy would entail creating an enabling ecosystem to boost women’s participation in the workforce, which, in turn, will drive growth in the economy, fostering a positive relationship between the two.

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Women’s workforce participation and contribution to GDP
Take a look at this: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that if India were to reach gender parity i.e. raising women's participation in the labour force to the same level as that of men, then it would boost India’s GDP by 27% .

As per the World Bank, at 17% of GDP, the economic contribution of Indian women is less than half the global average. India could boost its growth by 1.5 percentage points to 9 percent per year if around 50% of women could join the workforce . “What it means is that we cannot achieve economic growth without women’s participation,” explained Dr Taneja.

Delving into what could be done to bring it on par with at least some of the other developing countries, Dr Taneja dwelled on both the demand-side and supply-side factors including sociological and demographic ones.

Drawing attention towards a larger apathy or neglect, Sairee Chahal said that indeed there is no dedicated ministry tracking women's labour force participation. “I think we need to sort of refresh our approach to the process of GDP creation and women’s workforce participation and that’s where a lot of our India digitisation story plays out,” said Chahal.

Author and screenwriter Advaita Kala pointed out that all women work; but all are not paid for it. A quick fix could be to pay women for housework. “We just need to know how to acknowledge and quantify the work that women do.”

Impact of consumer tech on women entrepreneurs
Looking at the South Asia model itself, and specifically how women’s labour force participation is high in Bangladesh owing to its textile-driven industry, Kala stated that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) will have a role to play when it comes to increasing women’s participation in the labour force in India too.

With India’s phenomenal internet-access turnaround, anyone with access to the internet is potentially an entrepreneur, which means they have a chance to access the process of economic value creation and digital payments, noted Sairee Chahal as she spotlighted how we are living in the times of “consumerisation of technologies” and the concomitant “consumerisation of entrepreneurship”.

“I think almost 200 to 250 million women came online in the last four to five years, and this is quite unprecedented in history,” added the Founder of Sheroes and Mahila Money.

But while the digital space has given birth to the new-age entrepreneur, India’s policy approach is still disconnected from the real-world developments, explained Chahal. “I can safely say that what didn’t sort of convert in numbers in the salaried or the wage-earning bracket is now sort of converging into different cohorts of entrepreneurial activity. So, while we don’t account for women’s caregiving work, the irony is that we’re also not accounting for the new economic activities, which are actually growing faster,” explained the serial entrepreneur. This also ties with the overall thrust on skilling, leveraging technology and the post-COVID entrepreneurial surge.

Women’s underrepresentation in senior management
Another aspect where the workforce draws a sigh is women’s representation or lack of it in senior managerial positions, which is as low as about 15%. And there are only 9% of firms with women as top managers.

Jayaprakash JC’s pointed out that the burden of caregiving seems to be falling on the woman, with the conversation centred around whether to give her this flexibility or not. However, the real conversation, he said, should focus on both maternity leave and paternity leave and on how caregiving has to be by both men and women.

As women continue to pay the marriage and motherhood penalty as part of a vicious cycle and suffer from the disproportionate burden of caregiving duties, organisations also must go through a policy-level overhaul, added Jayaprakash JC.

For instance, despite period leave being such a pertinent issue, not many organisations are invested in adopting it. Often, we also hear companies saying they do not want to hire women because they will get two days extra per month as holiday, or 24 days in a year, which, in turn, will impact their productivity.

“I think one of the finest policies that has come up in the last one year is that SEBI has actually brought out a regulation, which makes it mandatory for the top 1000 firms to disclose gender disaggregated information on employment at all levels, including board members, on turnover rates, on return to work rates, on maternity leave, paternity leave also, and also on skill development,” added Dr Taneja.

Kala agreed with what Dr Taneja had highlighted at the start of the session, that of adopting a certain female or feminist perspective, which is what Sweden does when it formulates its policies and looks at budgeting. “And the feminist perspective I want to highlight here is not that of female superiority, but that of gender balance and inclusivity,” explained Kala.

Nominate an inspiring women leader you know for the ET Prime Women Leadership Awards 2023

Looking at the future
Picking up from Dr Taneja’s point, Chahal concluded that if we start reporting gender data in our annual reports and in our public listing analyst calls, it will make a difference. She added that mobility is something which India is tackling at an infra-level when making sure commuting becomes safer.

Chahal emphasised modularization of work, entrepreneurial activity, access to capital, and creation of special economic zones as important measures to be prioritised in the next five to 10 years.

For shepherding a She-economy, the spotlight needs to be on charting a route for women in the workplace vis-à-vis their economic empowerment aimed at enhancing their social status, empowering their personhood, and enabling them to make choices in an environment of greater freedom. And such a future can only be created through a long-term commitment to gender and pay parity at the workplace, said the panellists.

Watch the full panel discussion here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mwAaBmh690&t=16s