Indian women earn 19% less than men: Report

The equal pay for equal work among the genders is always a matter of debate. And a recent research by consulting services firm Korn Ferry Hay Group may just add more fuel to the fire. Conducted by the Organisation's Paynet database that followed and critiqued the two genders and their wages, the findings showed that even as on an average, globally women earn 17.6 percent less than men, in India this the gap is even more, at 18.8 percent. This conclusion was reached after an analysis of eight million employees from 33 countries, from which 57,000 workers were from India.

“Our data shows that when it comes to thinking about pay on the basis of gender, a man and a woman in the same company, doing the same job, will usually be paid nearly the same - but still favouring men by 1.6 per cent," Ben Frost, a global reward expert at Hay Group said to Economic Times.

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While 1.6percent may be for the rest of the world, in India, men are favoured 3.5percent more than women. It means that for the same work done by both the sexes; men get 3.5percent more privilege than women in India. The highest among all the countries.

“The biggest driver of the pay gap is the lack of women in high-paying industries, senior functions and in leadership positions. If we want to close the pay gap, it is the road to the top jobs that needs to be the focus. This is the pay gap problem,” Frost said, as reported by The Hindu.

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Now the major reason for this wage gap, reiterated many times, is the lack of women in different industries or the late entry of women in sectors which are high-paying like oil & gas, technology and life sciences. Since men have the first move advantage as far as work is concerned because of the age-old patriarchal structures, it is difficult for the board of many Companies to trust women with equal amount of faith. And even if the government is working towards bringing in women into the boardrooms of companies, this gap is far from vanishing.

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Feature Image Credit: adamsmith.org