Women in India earn 20 per cent less than men: Report

NEW DELHI: Women in India earn 20 per cent less than men, indicating that gender plays an important parameter while determining salaries in India, says a report.

According to the latest 'Monster Salary Index' (MSI), men earned a median gross hourly salary of Rs 231, compared to women, who earned only Rs 184.8.

"The overall gender pay gap of 20 per cent is still a daunting number," said Abhijeet Mukherjee, CEO, Monster.com - APAC & Gulf.

Though on a year-on-year basis, the gender pay gap has narrowed by about five percentage points from 24.8 per cent in 2016, the report said gender pay gap widens as one gains in work experience.

As per the report, men with 0-2 years of experience, earned 7.8 per cent higher median wages than women, and those with 6-10 years of experience earned 15.3 per cent more.

Men with 11 and more years of experience earned 25 per cent higher median wages than women, it added.

However, there is a marginally inverted pay gap in the experience group of 3-5 years, where women are earning more.

Monster Salary Index (MSI) is an initiative by Monster India in collaboration with Paycheck.in (managed by WageIndicator Foundation) and IIM-Ahmedabad as a research partner.

The analysis is based on the WageIndicator data-set covering the period of 3 years, from January 2015 to December 2017.

Monster.com also carried out a Women of India Inc survey, capturing responses of about 5,500 working men/women.

As per the survey, a majority of respondents (69 per cent) said gender parity needs to be a top priority for organisations as only 10 per cent organisations have a robust gender diversity programme.

About 36 per cent respondents said there is a need for India Inc to step up and implement pragmatic policies to bridge the pay gap and change employee perception for healthy work culture and foster equal opportunities, it added.