The World Inequality Report 2022 estimates that men in India earn 82% of labour income while women make only 18% of it. Recently, Gita Gopinath, first Deputy Managing Director, IMF spoke at the Korea Gender Equality Forum, voicing the significance of equal pay for women. Ensuring equality in opportunities and potential to participate in the economy can be a catalyst for a faster recovery from recent shocks, and a strong engine of growth for more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive economies going forward. Gender equality goes hand-in-hand with macroeconomic and financial stability, can stimulate economic growth, boost private and public sector performance, and reduce income inequality.
Considering the disparity in salary, the corporate sector must prep up its policies to ensure pay parity for the women workforce. It will ensure equal representation and engagement of women in organisational roles. A pragmatic and deep-rooted approach towards assuring parity of salary will establish financial strength for women.
Let us delve deep into this and see how this can be executed in the near future.
A positive picture
A recent increase and the possibility of women adorning the responsibilities not only as employees but also as board members highlights their robust engagement in an organisational structure. Recent research shows that women make up 16 percent of company boards. This proportion compared to the male counterpart needs to escalate. As India’s economy upsurges, we can expect an increase in women board directors. Such a transformation will be responsible for delegating women’s roles in the workforce to more decisive ones. It has the potential to spark and launch an era of gender-equal pay scales.
Striking a parity
There are a variety of provisions that can facilitate an enabling environment for women to retain themselves in a corporate environment. Organisations can initiate and implement these provisions in the long run to nurture the talent, capabilities, and calibre of the female workforce. It is immensely important and significant for the workplace environment to be women friendly. Moreover, the priority lies with the employers to consistently provide flexible work options as well as upskilling opportunities. These employer-side initiatives can boost women’s rate of engagement in the professional sphere at large.
Flexible work options
In addition to the above aspects, one of the major reasons for women employees to leave their jobs is lack of workplace flexibility. Similarly, the companies need to step up and become more committed to employee well-being and D&I. In addition to this, working from home and childcare facilities at the workplace will remarkably foster a positive scenario for women. As a result, it will manifest a feeling of equality and inclusion amongst the diverse and distinguished women professionals.
Scaling up through upskilling and society’s support
It is paramount that we equip women workforce with necessary skills. These skills need to upgrade at regular intervals. It will bolster them across the socio-economic ladder. Furthermore, it will spearhead the footprint of women employees in the corporate scenario.
Summing it up
The way forward is to consistently amplify and maintain gender pay parity. It can become a reality only with the collaborative efforts of a diverse set of board members across organisations, government, and families too.