Nearly half of women employees in India Inc may quit their firms in 2 years

Mumbai: Nearly half the women in India Inc are either unsure about how long they will stay with their current employers, or plan to quit in two years, citing reasons such as bias and pay disparity, a study by consulting firm Aon said.

Aon surveyed 24,000 women working in various companies, and the 47% who said they were unsure or would leave their employers in two years blamed the absence of an inclusive work culture, and limited career progression as some of the key reasons for their decision.

"Of the 47% who are unsure, 27% said they will not stay beyond 2 years and 20% said they are unsure about how long they will stay," Shilpa Khanna, associate partner and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) practice leader of talent solutions in India for Aon, told Mint.

Also read | Creches, hostels to support women’s participation in workforce

The study-Aon's 2024 Voice of Women-was conducted from March to June 2024. The research gathered responses from 24,000 women from over 560 participating small, medium and large companies.

According to the study, women who faced bias are 3.5 times more likely to perceive aspects of their organizational experience as unfair and 21% indicate leaving in less than a year versus only 6% of women who have not faced bias.

The need to recruit more women across sectors is coming at a time when participation of women in formal and informal sector had dropped during the pandemic as work from home and lack of support system became a challenge.

This year, the Union budget set aside ₹3 trillion towards schemes aimed to benefit women and girls, in an attempt to increase the participation of women in the workforce, and raise their contribution to economic development.

Also read | India needs more women workers to be a $5 tn economy: World Bank India chief

"We will facilitate higher participation of women in the workforce through setting up of working women's hostels in collaboration with industry, and establishing creches," finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech on 23 July.

Harassment and gender bias at workplace

Harassment at the workplace is another challenge that women face. Aon's study showed that 6%, or more than 1,400 of the women surveyed, said they faced sexual harassment at least once. However, less than half of them officially reported the incident to their employers.

In its annual general meeting (AGM) in May, India's largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was questioned on the rise in harassment cases and the reason behind the difference in median salaries of men and women employees. Chairman of Tata Sons N. Chandrasekaran emphasized that while TCS, with more than 600,000 employees, has zero tolerance towards harassment, but the uptick in cases could be due to more employees expressing themselves.

According to the study, some of the measures that can boost the number women in the workplace include women in leadership roles, flexible work options, and worklife balance.

More than two in five (42%) women faced bias, which includes their physical appearances, age, marital status or one that arose after becoming a mother.

Khanna told Mint that the data did not spot any difference between the responses of women from metros and non-metros. While 86% of the respondents from metros said that they were mentally exhausted, about 76% from non-metros reported the same. The challenges faced by the women employee were largely sector-agnostic.