The Gender Gap in the Private Sector: Challenges and Progress

The private sector in India employs millions of women, yet their experiences vary dramatically based on whether they work in organized or informal settings. While headlines celebrate progress in corporate boardrooms, a deeper look reveals persistent inequalities, particularly for women in agriculture, small-scale industries, and home-based work. Understanding these disparities is essential to addressing the structural barriers that keep many women trapped in precarious, low-paying jobs.

The invisible majority: women in informal work 🔗

Over 85% of India’s workforce operates in the informal sector, and women are disproportionately represented in these roles. The informal economy includes street vendors, domestic workers, agricultural laborers, and home-based workers who lack formal contracts, legal protections, or social security benefits. Despite contributing significantly to India’s GDP, these workers remain largely invisible in official statistics.

Women in informal employment face a triple burden: low wages, poor working conditions, and lack of recognition. Research shows that women in home-based work earn approximately Rs. 24 per hour, compared to Rs. 48 per hour for men doing similar work. This wage disparity extends across sectors. In agriculture, male laborers earned an average of Rs. 383 per day in 2020-21, while women earned just Rs. 294-a difference of Rs. 89 per day for the same work.

Agriculture: where women work but don’t earn fairly 🔗

Agriculture remains the primary source of employment for rural women in India, with nearly 75% of rural female workers engaged in farming and allied activities. Women perform approximately 60% of agricultural tasks, including sowing, weeding, harvesting, and post-harvest processing. Yet their contributions go largely unrecognized and inadequately compensated.

The gender wage gap in agriculture is particularly stark. In manual ploughing operations in 2009, men were paid Rs. 103 per day while women received Rs. 55-a wage gap ratio of 1.87. Even in tasks like sowing and weeding, where women’s participation is substantial, wage disparities persist with ratios ranging from 1.18 to 1.38.

Beyond wage discrimination, women agricultural workers face additional challenges. Most lack land ownership rights due to patriarchal inheritance customs and legal gaps. Without land titles, women cannot access credit, government schemes, or agricultural subsidies on their own terms. This economic exclusion perpetuates cycles of poverty and dependence.

The challenges of maternity and childcare 🔗

One of the most significant barriers to women’s sustained participation in the workforce is inadequate support for maternity and childcare. While the Maternity Benefit Act provides 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, it applies only to establishments with more than ten employees and excludes the vast majority of women working in the informal sector.

For women in informal work, pregnancy often means loss of income without any safety net. Many are forced to choose between continuing work in unsafe conditions or leaving the workforce entirely. The lack of affordable, accessible childcare compounds this problem. Research shows that women often exit paid employment not due to lack of skill or opportunity, but because the combined weight of paid and unpaid responsibilities becomes unmanageable.

Social expectations reinforce these challenges. Childcare is still viewed primarily as a woman’s responsibility, limiting their ability to work full-time or pursue career advancement. Even when women manage to balance work and family, they face discrimination in hiring and promotion due to perceptions that they may take career breaks for childbearing.

Organized vs unorganized: a tale of two realities 🔗

The organized private sector-comprising registered companies with formal employment contracts-has made some progress toward gender equality. India’s IT-BPM industry, for instance, has 34% women in its workforce, with women constituting 51% of entry-level hiring. Companies in this sector increasingly offer flexible work arrangements, mentorship programs, and family support policies.

However, even in the organized sector, challenges persist. Women represent 48% of university students in India but only 33% of entry-level workers and 24% of managers. The drop-off from entry-level to management positions is particularly steep, reflecting what researchers call the “broken rung” in the career ladder. Women face barriers to advancement including limited access to sponsorship, bias in performance evaluations, and exclusion from informal networks.

The informal sector presents a starkly different picture. With no formal contracts, workers have no legal recourse against arbitrary dismissal, wage theft, or workplace harassment. Women in the informal sector earn approximately 30-50% less than men according to International Labour Organization estimates, yet enforcement of equal remuneration laws remains weak.

Intersectionality deepens the divide 🔗

Gender inequality in the private sector cannot be understood in isolation from other forms of discrimination. Women from marginalized communities-particularly Dalits, Adivasis, and religious minorities-face compounded disadvantages. Research using wage decomposition methods reveals that discrimination based on caste and gender simultaneously affects earnings, with women from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes earning the lowest wages across both formal and informal sectors.

These women are more likely to work in the most precarious segments of the informal economy, performing tasks like waste collection, stone breaking, and domestic work. They face social stigma, limited mobility, and exclusion from community support systems. Educational disadvantages compound their economic vulnerability, creating barriers that are difficult to overcome even across generations.

SEWA: organizing for collective strength 🔗

Amidst these challenges, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) stands as a powerful example of how women can organize to improve their conditions. Founded in 1972 by Ela Bhatt in Ahmedabad, SEWA began as a trade union for women who had no employer-employee relationship-the cart pullers, waste pickers, street vendors, and home-based workers who were invisible to labor laws.

Today, SEWA has grown to 3.7 million members across 20 states in India, making it the largest organization of informal women workers in the country. The organization operates on twin goals: full employment (work security, income security, food security, and social security) and self-reliance (economic independence and decision-making ability).

SEWA’s integrated approach 🔗

What makes SEWA effective is its comprehensive strategy. Rather than addressing only labor rights or only economic empowerment, SEWA combines struggle and development through three interconnected approaches. First, it provides essential services including the SEWA Bank, established in 1974, which pioneered microfinance for women workers. The bank offers savings accounts, credit, and insurance tailored to the needs of informal workers who are typically excluded from formal financial systems.

Second, SEWA organizes women into cooperatives across various sectors-agriculture, dairy, handicrafts, and services. These cooperatives give women control over production, access to markets, and the ability to negotiate better prices for their goods and services. Over 3.2 million self-employed women are now associated with SEWA institutions, creating collective bargaining power that individual workers lack.

Third, SEWA engages in policy advocacy at local, state, and national levels. The organization has been instrumental in securing legal recognition for informal workers, including the passage of India’s Street Vendors Act in 2014 and the international recognition of home-based workers by the ILO in 1996. Through these efforts, SEWA brings visibility, voice, and validity to women whose work was previously invisible in economic statistics and policy frameworks.

Training and capacity building 🔗

SEWA also emphasizes skill development and leadership training. The organization runs vocational training programs to help women upgrade their skills and access better-paying work. Importantly, SEWA doesn’t just train women in traditional “women’s work”-it has trained women in construction, masonry, carpentry, and other skilled trades typically dominated by men.

Leadership development is equally crucial. SEWA cultivates grassroots leaders from within its membership, ensuring that women who understand informal work challenges firsthand are the ones designing solutions. This peer-to-peer model has proven effective not just in India but has been replicated in other countries including Ghana and Kenya.

Policy gaps and the path forward 🔗

Despite legal frameworks like the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976 and the Code on Wages of 2019, enforcement remains weak, particularly in the informal sector. Over 70 million women work as unpaid helpers in household enterprises, contributing to economic production but receiving no wages and no recognition as workers. This unpaid work is often invisible in labor statistics, making it difficult to design effective policies.

Several systemic changes are needed. First, labor laws must be extended and enforced in the informal sector. This requires increased resources for labor inspections, simplified grievance mechanisms, and penalties for non-compliance that actually deter exploitation. Second, social security schemes-including maternity benefits, health insurance, and pensions-need to cover informal workers. Some initiatives like Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana have shown promise, with nearly 70% of beneficiaries being women, but coverage remains limited.

Third, investments in public infrastructure are essential. Affordable, accessible childcare facilities would enable more women to remain in the workforce. Safe public transportation would reduce mobility barriers, especially for women in urban areas who work late hours. Fourth, addressing the gender wage gap requires transparency in pay structures, regular wage audits, and mechanisms for workers to challenge discrimination without fear of retaliation.

Beyond employment: redefining women’s work 🔗

Ultimately, achieving gender equity in the private sector requires more than policy changes-it demands a cultural shift in how society values women’s work. The assumption that women’s income is supplementary rather than essential perpetuates lower wages and limited opportunities. The expectation that women will prioritize family over career creates barriers to advancement that no amount of professional training can overcome.

Education plays a crucial role, but not just in terms of literacy and vocational skills. Challenging gendered expectations must begin early, with curricula that present diverse role models and career possibilities for girls. Media representation matters too-moving beyond portrayals of women as self-sacrificing caregivers to showcase women as leaders, entrepreneurs, and skilled professionals in all fields.

The private sector itself must recognize that gender diversity is not just an ethical imperative but an economic one. Companies with higher women’s representation benefit from diverse perspectives, better decision-making, and improved organizational performance. However, achieving this requires going beyond token hiring to create inclusive workplace cultures where women can thrive at all levels.

What do you think? How can companies and policymakers work together to ensure that women in informal sectors receive the same protections and opportunities as those in organized employment? What role should organizations like SEWA play in shaping future labor policies?

References

1. https://idronline.org/article/gender/women-in-the-workforce-what-we-know-and-what-were-missing/
2. https://yipinstitute.org/capstone/invisible-labor-women-india-home-work
3. https://www.changeincontent.com/international-equal-pay-day/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_India
5. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/social-sector/our-insights/women-in-the-workplace-2025-india-nigeria-and-kenya
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7. https://ijlsss.com/analyzing-how-women-workers-in-informal-sector-are-vulnerable-to-exploitation-and-their-legal-protection/
8. https://labourmarketresearch.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/s12651-013-0152-z
9. https://www.sewa.org/
10. https://sewabharat.org/
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_Employed_Women's_Association
12. https://www.dataforindia.com/women-and-work/
13. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/the-female-workforce-in-india-emerging-trends-and-insights