In a shocking finding, the wage gap between the women executive directors (EDs) and their male counterparts has doubled in the last financial year, data revealed.
Remuneration of women EDs remained the same in the past year. According to the numbers shown by research conducted by PrimeDatabase, the average salary of male EDs jumped 8 percent and in contrast the average pay of a women EDs witnessed a fall of a marginal -0.12 percent.
As per a report published in the Economic Times, the experts attributed this gap to the strong bias against women across levels in the corporate world which badly affect their career growth and promotions.
Moreover, they also argue that men choose more men to work with. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson, Biocon said, "As you rise up the corporate ladder, particularly as one reaches the middle-management level, there is an unfavorable bias against women in the promotion. There is a natural selection of more men because the people deciding are also mostly men. The pay parity problem starts at that stage."
The data highlighted that the pay inequalities increase steeply with an increase in the work experience. The Monster India Wage Index Report 2018 showed that men and women in the initial stage of their career (0-2 years of work experience) received almost an identical median wages, Rs 121.25 and Rs 120.28, respectively.
In the successive group based on the work experience, the wage gap also increased. For instance, a tenure group of 3-5 years of experience, the remuneration gap jumped to a moderate 3 percent. Further, the 6-10 years the gap stood at a shocking 13 percent higher median wage, while 11 or more years of tenure, men earned 10 percent more than women.
Notably, the data from nseinfobase.com showed that in FY19 women earned 45 percent less than men which were double the wage gap in FY18 when women directors earned 22.5 percent less than men. The experts further argued that the decreasing representation of women in the management hierarchy is also one of the major contributors to this huge pay gap.
