India suffers from huge gender pay gap

IT services sector has a huge gender pay gap of 34 per cent.

Amid raging debate over gender pay gap globally, a new report shows the figure for India stands as high as 27 per cent, where men earned a median gross hourly salary of Rs 288.68 while women earned Rs 207.85 per hour.

As per the latest Monster Salary Index, by online career and recruitment solutions provider Monster India, in the IT services sector the median gross hourly salary was the highest at Rs 337.3.

But the IT services sector has a huge gender pay gap of 34 per cent. Men in IT services earn Rs 360.9 per hour, while women earn only Rs 239.6 per hour.

A sector-wise analysis shows the gender pay gap was highest in manufacturing sector (34.9 per cent) and lowest in the BFSI and Transport, logistics, communication, equally standing at 17.7 per cent.

According to the report, some of the reasons behind gender pay gap could be the preference for male employees over female employees, preference for promotion of male employees to supervisory positions and career breaks of women due to parenthood duties and other socio-cultural factors.

Worldwide, lack of pay parity has taken a centre stage with strong views being shared by sports persons, political and business leaders alike. Men often get higher salary offers than women vying for the same title in the same organization, Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster India said.

"Needless to say, the situation is far from desired in India, especially when the country is gearing towards inclusive development," Modi said adding the task at hand is the pace at which this pay gap can be bridged.

There is a strong need to create equal opportunities for all, particularly women, who are key contributors in the Indian job market, he added.

Ironically, while education is considered as one of the major factors in influencing salaries, yet it is least paid sector in India.

"If the government needs to fulfill its vision of 'jobs for all' and a skilled India, then we need a sound education ecosystem with high quality teaching staff. Hence, it has become imperative to make the salaries of teachers and researchers competitive, if not lucrative," Modi said.

Monster Salary Index is an initiative by Monster India in collaboration with Paycheck.in (managed by WageIndicator Foundation) and IIM-Ahmedabad as a research partner.

This report provides a comparison of wage and working conditions figures for three periods: calendar year 2013, calendar year 2014 and the first three quarters of 2015 (January – September 2015).

The sample used for the analysis consists of 31,193 respondents and contains only employees as wages of self-employed people are excluded.