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Mumbai: The number of women in colleges is increasing, even as companies struggle to stem women leaving work. Companies are taking conscious steps to increase the ratio of women workers right from recruitment stage, but dropouts among junior-to-middle level workers are high.
“Female enrolment in higher education has gone up by 28% in 10 years. In STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) courses, girls and women constitute 43% of enrolment—one of the highest in the world. All these measures are getting reflected in the increasing participation of women in workforce,” said finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the interim budget speech on Thursday.
The minister also noted the boost to women entrepreneurs and highlighted that 300 million Mudra Yojana loans have gone out to women entrepreneurs. “The empowerment of women through entrepreneurship, ease of living, and dignity for them has gained momentum in these 10 years,” she added.
The finance minister’s remarks highlight a trend—since the pandemic there has been a high number of dropouts among women in both formal and informal sectors. The push to head back to work has also led many to opt for the gig economy.
A study of the 2000-plus companies listed on the National Stock Exchange called the Gender Gap, conducted by the Udaiti Foundation, an NGO, noted that the number of permanent women employees in the formal sector increased by 3 percentage points between FY21 and FY23, sigalling a slight rebound in female representation post-cpvod.
The study reveals that the number of women in permanent work in services, healthcare and real estate has increased while those in information technology, consumer goods and financial services remain flat. The stagnancy comes despite firms across sectors overhauling their retention and hiring strategies to hire more women.
The IT sector for instance has seen women hover around 34-35% over the last three fiscals, compared with the services sector, where women’s particpation has increased from 12% in FY21 to 20% in FY23.
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Published: 01 Feb 2024, 03:04 PM IST
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