Does your employer offer equal pay for equal work, asks govt survey to assess women-friendly workplaces

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, in coordination with the ministries of Labour and Employment as well as Women and Child Development, has been sending out surveys via text messages over the past week to assess employers on their support for women’s participation in the workforce.

With the objective of evaluating and rating employers based on their commitment and support for women's participation in the workforce, the employer rating survey asks the respondent to choose ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Not Applicable’ to questions such as does your company have policies or initiatives for women such as internal complaints committee for prevention of sexual harassment at workplace (POSH), creche facilities for children, equal pay for equal work, flexible or remote working hours for women, and transportation facilities during late hours.

The EPFO, India’s retirement fund body whose membership is an indicator of formal employment in the country, has distributed the questionnaire to its 30 crore subscribers. According to the labour ministry, the 28 lakh women registered with the EPFO in 2022-23 is the highest so far.

This is a part of initiatives taken under the “Saksham Nari Sashakt Bharat - Women in the Workforce for Viksit Bharat” event last week in New Delhi to chart a path for women-led development. Union Minister for Women & Child Development and Minority Affairs Smriti Irani had said that the Employer Rating Survey will provide a robust understanding of working conditions based on the feedback from women.

This comes as India has among the lowest female labour force participation rates in the world. The government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) shows that the female participation rate rose to 27.8% in 2022-23 from 17.5% in 2017-18, but a major chunk of this is of the women reported as “helpers in household enterprises” who do not receive regular salary for their work.

Private agency Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) pegs female labour force participation rate to have reduced to 8.73 per cent in 2022-23 from 11.80 per cent in 2017-18. Further, it showed that female LFPR in rural areas declined to 9.68 per cent in 2022-23 from 12.16 per cent in 2017-18, and fell to 6.90 per cent in 2022-23 from 11.10 per cent in 2017-18 in urban areas.

India ranks 127th among 146 countries in World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2023 for its score of 64.3% parity. India has climbed eight spots over the previous year, but is still way behind Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. In contrast, Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world and the only country to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap. It is followed by Norway, Finland, New Zealand and Sweden which have closed at least 80% of their gap.

Interestingly, India has achieved 100% parity of men and women on the educational attainment sub-index, according to the report. But the chasm widens when it comes to the economic participation and opportunity sub-index, where the country has only achieved 36% parity.

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