Monday, 15 Sep, 2025
Photo courtesy: PixaBay
India’s fall to 131 out of 148 in the 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, driven by poor economic participation, signals that without workplace reforms, talented women risk being left behind.
Mamoni Choudhury (name changed) thought she had landed the perfect start to her career. Fresh out of engineering college, she joined a top tech firm in Bengaluru, working alongside her male classmates in the same team, with the same role. But within months, a casual conversation over coffee revealed a harsh truth: her male peers were making significantly more than she was.
She hadn’t asked for less. She simply didn’t know what to ask for—nor had she been told what others were earning. Her experience is far from unique.
In India, a persistent gender pay gap—estimated at around 34 per cent—continues to disadvantage women, even when they have comparable qualifications and experience. Despite strong academic performance, many women find that education alone isn’t enough to secure equal footing in the labour market.
Broken Link Between Education and Employment
Girls have consistently outperformed boys in school exams for more than a decade. From 2014 to 2025, female pass rates for Class 10 board exams regularly exceeded 85 per cent, compared to lower averages for boys. In higher education too, women are outpacing men. In the 2021–22 academic year, India reached a milestone: the gross enrolment ratio (GER) for women in college stood at 28.5 per cent, just above men’s 28.3 per cent.
Yet this progress in classrooms hasn’t translated into economic opportunity. According to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey, the share of women in salaried jobs dropped from 21 per cent in 2017–18 to just 15.9 per cent in 2023–24. That’s a worrying trend for a country seeking to harness its demographic dividend.
The fallout is not just about jobs lost—but income lost. In urban India, salaried men earn just 11 per cent more than their self-employed peers. But for women, the gap is far wider. A salaried woman earned an average of Rs 19,709 a month last year—more than double the income of a self-employed woman. When women move out of formal employment, their incomes don’t just decline—they plummet.
Systemic Barriers, Not Skill Gaps
The reasons go beyond personal choice. Women face a range of structural obstacles: limited workplace flexibility, inadequate childcare support, and hiring biases that continue to discourage female participation. Even when women land jobs, pay structures are often opaque—packaged under broad terms like “cost to company”—which makes it harder to know what fair compensation looks like.
This lack of transparency contributes to persistent inequities. And it keeps women like Mamoni from negotiating better terms or even recognizing they’ve been shortchanged.
India’s ranking in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report underscores the problem. In 2025, India slipped to 131 out of 148 countries, with particularly poor scores on economic participation. The data sends a clear message: unless workplace policies change, India risks sidelining a generation of highly qualified women.
Missed Economic Opportunity
This isn’t just a gender issue—it’s an economic one. A more inclusive labour market could help India unlock significant productivity gains. Studies have shown that raising female labour force participation could boost GDP by several percentage points.
Experts say employers need to adopt transparent pay practices, offer flexible work arrangements, and invest in support systems that help women balance work and caregiving responsibilities. Government policies must also play a role—by encouraging companies to create inclusive work environments and by funding childcare infrastructure.
India has done well to increase access to education for women. But degrees alone won’t fix the gap. Without structural reforms, academic achievement will continue to be met with disappointment in the job market.
The doors to opportunity are open in the classroom—but too often, they close at the workplace.
