34% of women leave jobs in India over work-life balance, study finds

The study also showed that the hiring managers are far more likely to consider a female applicant’s marital status and age when considering her for a role, compared to a male applicant.

New Delhi: Over 34 per cent of women exit firms over work-life balance, while only 4 per cent of men are affected by it, findings of a study showed.

A survey with 200 HR professionals across a range of sectors by the Centre for Economic Data at the Ashoka University and Udaiti Foundation also noted that 59 per cent of firms lack mandatory Internal Complaints Committees. While 37 per cent of organisations do not provide maternity leave benefits only 17.5 per cent provide childcare facilities, Women in India Inc HR Managers Survey reported.

The findings showed that 38 per cent of HR managers considered a woman’s marital status during the hiring process, whereas only 22 per cent did so in the case of male candidates. Age and location, too, were factors that were slightly more likely to be considered in the case of women (43 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively) compared to men (39 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively). 

“We find that hiring managers are far more likely to consider a female applicant’s marital status and age when considering her for a role, compared to a male applicant, which can create barriers to hiring more women. We also find that women who have taken a career break face significant challenges in being hired if they try to re-enter the workforce. This underscores the fact that merely establishing gender-neutral recruitment practices will not guarantee gender-equal outcomes,” the study noted. 

To conduct the study, HR professionals from large corporations with over 500 employees or an annual revenue of over Rs 500 crores as well as smaller enterprises with 50 to 200 employees or an annual revenue of less than Rs 100 crores across five major industries and organisations at different growth stages were interviewed. The sectors include Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), Pharma, Retail, Information Technology (IT)/Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES), and banking, Financial Services and Insurance (bFSI) sectors. Among the 200 human resource managers surveyed, 81 per cent hold director-level positions or above.  

“We find that even organisations with stated gender diversity goals often lack actual mechanisms to ensure a female-friendly and gender diverse work culture. Employers can play a huge role in attracting women into formal paid work. The right mix of policies at the workplace will enable women to stay on, advance in their careers, and contribute to the growth of the organisation,” Dr Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics at Ashoka University said. 

“While a majority of HR managers acknowledged having gender diversity goals, only 43 per cent of organisations actively measured and publicly disclosed gender representation data, with an additional 42 per cent measuring but not disclosing it. 73 per cent of organisations claimed to have gender diversity goals, but only 21 per cent possess clear internal strategies for achieving their goals,” the report stated.

Currently, 63 per cent or 290 million of women aged 15-64 years in India are not a part of the labour force. 

The study further showed that 52 per cent of the hiring managers surveyed reported using gender-neutral job descriptions while hiring, 48 per cent used mixed-gender interview panels, and 45 per cent set diversity targets for applicant pools. As many as 69 per cent of the organisations also actively sought independent certification for gender equality, which makes an organisation’s commitment to gender equality visible to the wider public.