Pay, representation gaps: Tech sector far from gender parity at senior level

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

- SOURABH LELE

The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap report says that the global parity score was at 68.1 per cent in 2022 and it will take 132 years to reach full parity.

India's ITES and software sector one of the country's leading employers of women - is no exception to this inequality. Gender disparity becomes more explicit when it comes to the compensation offered to male and female employees.

Online coding education platform Coding Ninja has released data showing a persistent gender pay gap in India's tech industry. This comes even as the gap in average total compensation was somewhat bridged.

Men continue to receive higher packages, according to the platform's internal survey of salaries offered to its students, including recent graduates and experienced professionals.

The highest salary reported on the platform in the past two years for men was ₹1 crore, while it was ₹48 lakh for women. Analysts agree that while the number of women getting hired has gone up, it need not mean their salaries, too, are improving.