Gender pay gap in India

Abstract

Gender-based discrimination at the workplace is profound in India. Women are often denied the same opportunity as men and there is an absence of ‘Equal work, Equal pay’ for women despite their hardships. While things have improved, even in the most developed countries, women still make 80 cents to the dollar as per various reports. The situation in India is even more grim. There are multiple reasons explained for this pay divide time and again. Motherhood, lack of equal education culture, cultural beliefs, and workplace culture are to name a few. India has its war chest ready with laws like Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 which prohibits any discrimination based on gender. However, in practice even today, pay divide is deeply rooted in India. This is more prevalent in informal sector than formal sector. This is mainly because of two reasons. First being that women in informal sector are uneducated and are unaware of their rights of equal compensation. Second being, corporations especially large corporations in formal sector value their reputation. This fear of reputation acts as stabilizing factor to go against the law and discriminate to the larger extent. However, even with this incentive to not discriminate, Indian formal system has unexplained gender pay gap. India remains as one of highest gender pay gap country according to research conducted by various research bodies. Women are paid approximately 20% less than men. This fact is irrespective of nature of employment or the structure of work carried away. The situation is even more grim for informal sector where almost 90% of Indian labor force is employed. They remain uneducated and without any labor regulations or written contracts.