Across sectors India Inc. has been stepping up efforts to increase women participation on shop floors. But despite the efforts, data shows that a lot more needs to be done.

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According to a Deloitte survey on blue collar workforce trends covering over 100 companies, 300 plants across 15+ industries, the male to female ratio in blue collar jobs is still only 12:1. That means there is only one woman for every 12 men in India’s factories and they are also making lesser money than men.

On an average, women make only 0.84x of the salary of their male counterparts. The gender ratio is better in the FMCG, pharmaceuticals, automobiles sectors where the manufacturing processes are more automated requiring skilled talent as compared to sectors like cement or chemicals.

So why is women participation still low?

Deloitte attributes this to the continued prevalence of social issues as well as lack of flexible work hours and a healthy climate.

According to Deloitte, only 18 percent of the companies surveyed have female night shift blue collar employees. Of these, only half the organisations have a door to door pickup and drop facility and less than half have a female security guard at the plant premises in all shifts.

Very few companies have additional benefits for female workers like menstrual leave, separate changing rooms or even a dedicated medical professional.

What is encouraging however is that most companies do offer basic facilities and make them available closer to the workstations of women workers. These include basic infrastructure like ladies washroom, gender separate changing rooms, feeding room facilities etc.

However the glass ceiling still persists. At a global level too, only one in three managers or supervisors is currently a woman. According to the UN, it will take another 140 years to reach gender parity and 286 years before discriminatory laws against women are done away with.

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(Edited by : Pradeep John)