Women and Financial Inequality

Gender Pay Gap is the average difference between a man and woman’s remuneration. According to a study by the World Economic Forum, India ranks at a disappointing 87 in the Global Gender Gap Rankings (which tracks data for 135 countries) which includes the following criteria; Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.

Negotiations for Salary: it has been shown men are four times as likely to start conversations related to negotiations as compared to women. Thereby if a man and a woman apply for the same job, the man is likely to end up with a higher salary by virtue of having negotiated, and the woman a lower salary. This difference adds up over the years.

Companies need to actively invest in training and staff that can sensitize people to the issue of the gender pay gap and how our conditioning and biases can influence it. Active consideration should be made to consider women for leadership roles. Ownership of assets has huge implications on the lives of women.

Coupled with women’s empowerment and social inclusion, financial access through bank accounts and digital banking technologies should be gradually implemented also in rural areas.

Resources:http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2012.pdf

https://www.oxfamindia.org/blog/1209/data-and-discrimination-womens-ownership-assets-india