Today it’s much easier to find savvy female professionals such as doctor, lawyers, chartered accountants and even top politicos of the nation. The progress towards equality is the workplace is also gained much ground over past decade. In fact, many big corporate houses are much more gender-blind than ever before.
But, the fact still remains that even in the highest paying job posts; women still make less than what their male co-workers could squeeze given their equal qualification standards. Well, who knows – the reason could as well be that women might not be aggressive in negotiating salaries for themselves. But, that may not be the only reason though. (Also see a previous poll we conducted – Trak.in Poll Verdict: Indians prefer female bosses, only just)
A new Global attitude project survey by Pew Global points out that the gender-based discrimination remains a workplace reality even in today’s highly competitive era. In fact, the report suggests that the economically testing times could reverse gains being made in gender parity.
During economic crisis, regular employment opportunities gets replaced by contract labour which could have effect on women employment prospects, and these jobs are the first to suffer at the employer’s hand which are on constant look out for reducing pay-rolls during the recessionary times.
The survey covered 25000 adults spanning 22-nation survey also includes sample interviews of 2254 Indians. While 95% of the respondents in India believed that women should be able to leave house to work, a majority of participants from India to the extent of 84% felt that when jobs are scarce, men should have more of a right to a job.
Moreover, there can be many factors which affect wage disparity such as hours worked (take, for example, part-time job schedules), skill, talent and sometimes even the employer’s conflicting preferences between choosing men and women for the job. One other major factor being a number of working women have to strike a balance between their dual roles of work life and home including parenting activities.
The disparity can be further reduced if the employer’s are forthcoming and willing to change the workplace environment more suitably and friendly enough for the women community, which could lead to revamping of jobs in accommodating more women candidates.
In fact, looking at the multiple roles being played by many women, it would be more of an interesting survey if somebody could provide the stats regarding the pay parity for doing exactly same job and number of working hours being put by both the genders. That would call for a more appropriate comparable analytic survey.
Apart from Workplace Gender Bias, the survey presents some others interesting finds as well:
- Support for women working outside the home
- Women should be able to work at home
- What kind of marriage is more satisfying?
Whats your take on gender equality (or inequality) in India?