Gender Pay Gap: Maternity & Workplace Bias Impact

Mumbai, Sep 18 (PTI) Almost every one in two respondents (45 per cent) in a survey said they believe that there is over 20 per cent gender pay gap in the country mainly due to career breaks after children and workplace bias, a report said on Thursday.

More than half of the professionals (51 per cent) identified maternity breaks as the single biggest reason behind the gender pay gap in India, while 27 per cent pointed to workplace bias, the way women are perceived at work, as the primary cause.

Importantly, the report found that both men and women share this view and this belief was strongest in IT (56 per cent), pharma (55 per cent), and automobile (53 per cent).

The impact of career breaks is especially evident among professionals in the 5-10 years (54 per cent) and 10-15 years (53 per cent) experience brackets, life stages when maternity breaks are most common, added the report.

This Naukri report is based on a survey among over 20,000 professionals across 80 industries and eight cities.

Further among the sectors, half of all professionals surveyed (50 per cent) flagged IT as the industry with the widest gender pay gap, far outpacing real estate (21 per cent), FMCG (18 per cent), and banking (12 per cent), said the report.

Geographically, India's technology hubs, Hyderabad (59 per cent) and Bengaluru (58 per cent), reported the highest concerns about IT pay inequities, it said.

Sectors like aviation (57 per cent), education (52 per cent), and IT (50 per cent) reflected sharper perceptions of inequality, traditional industries such as oil & gas and retail offered a more positive outlook.

In oil & gas, more than 1 in 4 respondents said the gap was negligible (0-5 per cent), the report added.