Women hold only 33 per cent of entry-level roles in private jobs in India, finds report

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Workforce gender gap begins early in India with women holding just one in three entry-level private sector roles and only 24 per cent of managerial positions, a report said on Wednesday.

In India, despite forming half of the university graduate pool, women continue to face systemic barriers to entry, advancement, and retention in formal employment, according to McKinsey & Company's 'Women in the Workplace' report.

It showed that women hold just one in three entry-level private sector roles and only 24 per cent of manager positions, signalling a wide gap between potential and actual representation.

The report is based on insights of 324 organisations across India, Nigeria, and Kenya employing roughly 1.4 million people, including 77 private sector organisations from India (having a total of 9 lakh employees).

The gender imbalance in India is further highlighted by a seven-year age gap at the entry level where women average 39 years compared to men at 32 years, the widest gap across all three countries studied.

This suggests that many women start formal employment later or stagnate, remaining in entry-level roles longer before advancing, said the report.

Further the report found that at entry level women face much lower promotion rates compared to men.

A man at the entry level is 2.4 times more likely to be promoted to a managerial position than a woman in the same role. At the same time, women are 1.3 times more likely to leave their positions than men at this stage, it stated.

This results in a compounding effect of low promotion and high attrition and becomes a bottleneck in the early-career talent pipeline, resulting in only 24 per cent of manager roles held by women, it added.

"Gender equity in the workplace is not just a moral or social imperative, it is a strategic one. As India sets its sights on becoming a USD 8 trillion economy by 2035, fully integrating women into the formal workforce is developmentally foundational. Our research shows that while many organisations recognise the importance of diverse management and teams, progress remains uneven," McKinsey & CompanySenior Partner Vivek Pandit said.

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