As unemployment among male outpaces female among the urban youth, India’s corporate sector may stand the risk of attracting backlash to its diversity efforts, a new white paper by researchers at the Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM), has found.
Per the study that assesses data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey of the NSSO, in the 20-24 age group, male unemployment was nearly 10% compared to 7.5 per cent for women in 2023-24. In the 25-29 age band, it was 5.7 per cent for women and 7.2 per cent for men. The higher male joblessness amidst rising female employment is reducing the likelihood of young men securing quality jobs. This highlights the need to accelerate creation of quality jobs, the study notes.
“We are already seeing a backlash to diversity in some western countries as quality job creation gets impacted. India must accelerate job creation to avoid similar negativity towards diversity initiatives among men; women’s jobs cannot come at men’s expense,” Vidya Mahambare, Lead Researcher and Author of the report, and Professor of Economics and Director, Research at GLIM, told businessline.
The study shows that employment among urban Indian women has seen promising trends in the last few years. Women’s employment in urban India rose by 10 per cent in six years (2017-18 to 2023-24) reaching a rate of 28 per cent among working age women (15-64 years).
Interestingly, urban women in their forties have the highest employment rate — 38.3 per cent in 2023-24, indicating that women now have avenues to focus on careers once children grow up. It also indicates that the general attrition at managerial levels may be ebbing out. Employment rate refers to percentage of urban women engaged in any employment.
Support system
Highlighting areas of external support needed to grow the working women pool, especially in managerial roles, the white paper lists measures such as aligning school hours and workplace hours and encouraging paid after-school childcare within schools. “While access to remote work has become more common in recent years, corporate leadership in India needs to critically reassess workplace norms that prioritise presence over productivity,” the report said.
However, despite progress in recent years, over 89 million working-age urban women in the 15-64 year age group still remain outside the labour force in 2023-24 categorising themselves as ‘not seeking work’. This is more than the entire population of Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.
There is also a shift in attitude among dual-earning educated couples. Per a February 2025 survey by Great Lakes on gender roles in dual-earning families, over 65 per cent of couples reported equal priority given to both partners’ careers. However, when prioritisation is unequal, husbands’ careers receive priority in 30% of marriages, while wives’ careers are prioritized in only 4.7 per cent cases.
Further, remote work is also emerging as a double-edged sword. While women report both higher productivity and lower stress while working from home, 46 per cent of mothers who WFH worry about working longer hours compared to their office-based colleagues. “In the age of AI, when all resumes look similar, a candidate’s network will help in career development and women also fear they may lose out on this by working from home and not creating networks at office,” Mahambare said.