HYDERABAD: The India Skills Report 2017 highlighted the gaping gap between men and women in gaining employment across all sectors. While the report tracked gender diversity across 12 core sectors, women were employed in far lower number than men in all sectors, thus highlighting striking inequalities, even in these days, where more women are gett i n g i n t o c o l l e g e s a n d workplaces. For instance, while 78.79 per cent of work force in banking, financial services and insurance sector were men, women formed just 21.21 per cent.
In case of pharma and health care sectors while 71.72 pc of workforce were men, women were just 28.28. Even in the hospitality industry just 26 pc of workforce is women. In sectors like telecommunications, manufacturing, engineering- automatives the situation is even worse with just 16, 21 and 18 per cent of women being employed respectively. While women did not get a fair deal in sectors like IT, banking and engineering sectors, in other sectors like education, they formed 40 pc of workforce.
“The gender gap in India’s workforce is both a challenge and an opportunity. If India has to achieve its skill development targets, then focus has to be put on bridging the gender gap in all industries,” said Clement Chauvet, chief-skills and business development, United Nations Development Program (UNDP).