50% men admit rise in bias against women at workplace: Survey

It added 48 per cent of male employees have attributed increasing gender bias as one of the biggest reasons for attrition of women at workplace

New Delhi: More than 50 per cent of the men feel that there is an increased biasness against women at workplace, said a new survey.

According to the survey conducted by TeamLease, half of the male employees interviewed feel that there is an increase in gender bias against women in the last two years in spite of the implementation of Maternity Benefit Act.

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It added 48 per cent of male employees have attributed increasing gender bias as one of the biggest reasons for attrition of women at workplace. Around 54 per cent of the male respondents stated discrimination at workplace to be the root cause of women not progressing in their career. Similarly more than 28 per cent of men felt that there is an increase in gender bias in the hiring stage itself.

Elaborating about the findings, Rituparna Chakraborty, Executive Vice President and Co-Founder, TeamLease Services, said: “It is very disturbing to know that even in today’s world women are treated differently. However, the only silver lining is that there is a growing realization amongst men that the regressive attitude and not talent that is pulling women folks down. As the saying goes, realization is the beginning of the change, now that there is a unanimous acceptance we are hopeful that the way women are treated both at the corporate world as well as in the society will undergo a transformation.”

A detailed study covering the entire gambit of women participation at work, challenges including policies like maternity bill, as per the findings, it is not only India Inc even male employees perceives Maternity benefit Amendments Act 2017 to be not very effective. Most of the male respondents (36 per cent) echoed that the act is one sided and they were of the opinion that both the parents should get paid leave for childcare.

OTHER KEY FINDINGS OF THE STUDY

Employee/Employer /Industry sentiments on childcare leave and retention of women talent post maternity Childcare Leave-Male Employee Perspective: 45 per cent believe both parents should be provided paid leave. Most men agree that workplace gender bias has increased against women retention (48 per cent) and career progression (54 per cent).

Post-maternity women retention efforts by employers: are not aligned with actual challenges highlighted by women. Nearly one in four employers (24 per cent) provide flexible working hours to reduce post maternity attrition, whereas the key challenge highlighted by women are wage cuts(30 per cent)

Job Opportunity Loss: Aviation, Retail, and Tourism continued to cause net job opportunity loss for women during FY 2019-20, belying expectations of net gain. Education, Real estate and Manufacturing also caused job opportunity loss, in place of the expected mixed outlook.

Hiring outlook forecasts by geography: Of the 28 states and two union territories, 13 stayed true to the forecasts and 17 bucked the forecasts, made for medium term.

Of the 10 states which were expected to show a negative outlook over the medium term, six states and two union territories have posted a higher LFPR in FY 2018-19 when compared to FY 2017-18.

Of the 20 states that were predicted to have moderate to high positive outlook, nine states ended up posting a lower LFPR in FY 2018-19 than in FY 2017-18. Himachal Pradesh has the highest LFPR of 64.1 per cent and Bihar has the lowest LFPR of 4.5 per cent.