Gender discrimination at workplace

Why in news?

Internet giant Google has recently sacked a male employee for his internal memo which perpetuated gender stereotypes.

How distributed are women in Indian workforce?

• Women entrepreneurs in India are mostly concentrated in low-paying industries.
• Manufacturing sector, tobacco products, apparel and textiles attract the largest share of women entrepreneurs.
• This is perhaps because these industries are known to have lower physical labour requirements.
• There is also a strong negative relationship between average industry wages and the share of female-led plants in the manufacturing sector.
• The overall participation of women in corporate India is only of 20-22%.  
• This sharply falls to 12-13% at senior and top levels.
• The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index placed India in the 101st position among 136 countries.

What are the challenges in the work place?

• Women employees in India are still fighting for an equal pay for equal work.
• Sexual harassment exists at workplace.
• Frequently, managements pressurize the victims of harassment to withdraw the complaints.
• Indian companies are reluctant to employ women for reasons of brake/relieves after marriage and motherhood.
• Inadequate infrastructure affects women entrepreneurs more than men, because women often bear a larger share of the time and responsibility for household activities.
• Women face greater constraints in geographic mobility imposed by safety concerns and social norms.

What should be done?

• Improving gender balance is an important first step for India’s development and its achievement of greater economic growth and gender equality.
• Imposing a mandatory women quota in the boardroom — something that countries such as Norway, France, Sweden and Spain have done can ensure a place for women.
• Procedural acceptance of sharing the burden of parental care by both men and women with the measures like paternity leave will ensure the gender balance in hiring process.
• Sensitisation of society and co-workers to gender understandings can be of help.

Source: Business Standard, Livemint