Women Workforce Equality Still Miles Away, Admits Women in Business Survey

Over the last few years, one can witness more women being hired at any workplace. However, there is still a huge gap between women and men ratio at the workplace. In fact, Maharashtra never had a woman chief minister,  woman director general of police or a woman chief secretary. A similar situation can be seen across the country as well. According to the ‘Women in Business Survey’ India ranked third from last with only 17 percent of women at senior positions.

Captain Kshmata Bajpai, who is with Air India, said, “When we started in this field, it was primarily a man’s world. But, there has been a positive change in the way women are taking up this enterprising and satisfying job.”

Meeran Borwankar, retired police commissioner of Pune said, “Women started joining the police force late. They enrolled in large numbers only since 2010, so we don’t have many senior women IPS officers yet. Moreover, political leadership is not very comfortable with women commissioners of police, so we don’t see much encouragement from the government either.”

The significant rise can be seen in civil aviation workforce. President of the Indian Women Pilots Association, Harpreet Singh, said, “There has been an increase in the number of women in flying schools over the years. While the number of working women pilots has been increasing over the past ten years, in the last two to three years, there has been a freeze in recruitment.”

Captain Kshamta Bajpai further added, “When we started in this field, it was primarily a man’s world. But, there has been a positive change in the way women are taking up this enterprising and satisfying job.”

In occupations like engineering, women are still struggling. Around 3500 engineers are employed by the Brihan-Mumbai Municipal Corporation in Mumbai. However, only 12.65 percent of them are women. Only eight percent of the total population at IITs makes up the women.