Indian women's contribution to GDP is less than half the global average: McKinsey study

In India, 45 per cent of employers can't find the talent they need and they are still not tapping the women workforce, said Neeti Banerjee, Founder and CEO, TalentNomics Inc at the conference "Re-Imagine Leadership for a World Unimagined" in Delhi.

The one-day event brought together leaders across nations, sectors, genders and generations to deliberate on the type of leadership needed in the coming years. Sanjay Kathuria, Lead Economist, The World Bank Group added, "The decline of women participation in India is a decline in our GDP."
Indian women contributed just 17 per cent of national GDP, which is less than half the global average of 37 per cent, according to a McKinsey study. Advancing women's equality can add $12 trillion to global growth by 2025 and India can increase its GDP by 16 per cent  if it achieves gender parity in labour force. There is a need to make a conscious effort to address women issues, said Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor, Government of India in his keynote. He said the elephant in the room in relation to women issues is our cultural norms and patriarchy.  

 Anuranjita Kumar, MD&CHRO of Citi South Asia, said that she has seen women working their way up to the middle managerial positions after which they lose direction for several reasons and socio-cultural pressures. "The ones that go on are because of the drive in them to succeed and to get that leadership role."  Often this dropping out also happens because of the company's policies.  

Sandeep Kataria, Director, Commercial, Vodafone shared anecdotes on how some women employees considered quitting at the company because of no work from home facilities after their maternity leave till two years back. Vodafone now offers flexible work timings and remote work facility to its employees.

 The conference generated many new ideas for corporate leaders, educationists, policy makers and women themselves to bring about gender parity at leadership.  Some of the interesting suggestions made was awareness sessions for women to recognise their own biases and potential, having woman role models in companies share their stories of breaking the glass ceiling and getting leaders to sponsor high potential women to prepare them for next level. It was also suggested to have a policy for companies to have a diversity target with a sunset date following which they have to share the results publicly on demographics.