Even today, women in India earn 20% less than men, according to data from the Monster Salary Index (MSI). The MSI data from 2017 indicates that the current gender pay gap in India stands at 20%. While men earned a median gross hourly salary of ₹231, women earned only ₹184.8.
The gap has narrowed by about five percentage points from 24.8% in 2016. However, the good news ends here. The 2017 MSI data suggests that gender pay gap in India increases with work experience. While men with 0-2 years of experience earned 7.8% higher median wages than women, men with 6-10 years of experience earned 15.3% more. Men with 11 and more years of experience earned 25% higher median wages than women. Interestingly, there is a marginally inverted pay gap in the experience group of 3-5 years, where women are earning more.
Abhijeet Mukherjee, CEO, Monster.com – APAC and Gulf, said: “Let’s not get carried away with the narrowing gender pay gap revealed by the 2017 MSI because the gender pay gap in India widens as one gains work experience. Moreover, the overall gender pay gap of 20% is still a daunting number.”
“However, before expecting a change in the pay parity policy, attitudes of men and women need to shift for this to become a reality. One thing that came to my attention from the Monster Women of India Inc. survey was that as high as 40% of women expressed that men feared being judged by their male peers and chose to support gender equality only in private. Also, 40% of women felt men simply did not know what to do or say. The bright side was that 44% of men confirmed that they could be effective advocates for gender initiative programs at workplace,” Mr. Mukherjee added.
The survey was aimed at understanding the working women, and their workplace concerns broadly were categorised under the parameters of diversity, career growth and safety. In an eye-opener, 44% of men confirm that they can be effective advocates for change for gender initiative programmes. Even 39% of women think the same. However, 40% of women do feel that men are allies of gender equality only in private because they fear being judged by their other male peers or simply don’t know what to do around these issues (40%). In terms of the reasons for working, 36% of women believe they must contribute to family income whereas 18% of women respondents work as they are the sole breadwinners of the family.
