upGrad-led Harappa’s survey unveils Gender Pay Gap widest in Top Leadership roles

Mumbai : Harappa – part of Asia’s largest integrated Learning, Skilling, & Workforce Development company upGrad, today unveiled, ‘The Grand Women & Workplace Report’ — India’s most definitive study on women’s ambitions, career interferences and professional realities. Layered across career milestones and with inputs from more than 1,500 professionals in India Inc, the findings bring to light a range of critical issues affecting women in the workplace. The thought-provoking insights include:

· Women most value growth (82% of respondents) and increased compensation (78%) at work along with a supportive ecosystem to achieve these. Contrary to popular belief, less than a third of the women surveyed picked flexible work options and work-life balance as key themes.

· More than a hundred years after the first International Women’s Day being observed, the playing field is far from levelled. The widest valley in the gender pay gap tragically occurs in the top ranks of leadership. For every Rs 100 that men at the CXO-levels earn, their women counterparts earn Rs 74.

· While women professionals excel at sales and are bringing in revenue, they aren’t being entrusted enough with investment decisions. Profit & Loss mandates still elude women, with the biggest gap occurring between men and women department leads — at 65% vs 29%, respectively.

· While most women who take career breaks do so for parenthood (58%), men are more likely to pause professional pursuits to further their education (48%). The disparity doesn’t stop at starting a family: women spend 2.5X more time caregiving, every day, through their careers.

“Unfortunately, women’s careers continue to be the greatest obstacle course in history, marred by broken rungs, glass ceilings, glass cliffs, and deep valleys of pay gaps and role inequities. These are critical challenges and realities to address and fix. India’s ascent to becoming one of the world’s top economies will need all its talent to contribute meaningfully, and progress fairly, and we hope that our report is one more reminder to continue to endeavour to fix these,” said Harappa Co-founders, Shreyasi Singh and Pramath Raj Sinha in a joint quote.

“The Women and Workplace report on the challenges women face in the workplace is a wake-up call. It gives us urgent priorities to address to ensure that every employee feels valued and respected, regardless of gender. We must do better to support and empower women, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s critical to our long-term success,” concluded Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder & Chairperson, upGrad.