The Real Labor Cost & Burden Of Benefits

The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 brought in some sweeping changes to what companies are now liable to provide to their female employees. But are companies prepared to face and bear such changes?

- Dhruv Mukerjee

FACT: a staggering 56 percent of women in India do not return to work post-maternity

FACT: India's ranking on the global gender gap index fell from 87 in 2016 to 108 in 2017

FACT: globally, national incomes are closely related to women’s workforce participation rates. however, this phenomenon does not apply to India because of its poor female workforce participation rate

FACT: India could potentially add 6.8 crore women to its workforce by raising the rate of female workforce participation under a best-effort scenario, with improved gender parity and that could, in turn, raise the proportion of women in India's workforce from 27 percent to 35 percent

FACT: Indian women’s workforce participation rate slumped by nearly 10 percent – from 36.9 percent to 26.96 percent between 2005 and 2013. since then, this statistic has remained flat and is even showing signs of dipping further

These statistics show where India is in terms of female workforce participation and gender parity. Discussed at length in the Teamlease’s report titled The Impact of Maternity Benefits on Business and Employment, the statistics present a grim reality of the progress that India has made when it comes to accepting women at the workplace despite some sweeping legislative changes, and the divided opinion of the India Inc. on The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017.

In early March last year, India was able to ‘steer’ some of the most progressive amendments to the long untouched Maternity Benefits Act of 1961. The bill, titled the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on the 11th of August 2016, and having passed the house on the same day, went through the deliberations of Lok Sabha; it was finally ratified by the President in the early weeks of March 2017.