Fewer women in corporate leadership roles, judiciary, says report

Report highlights gender disparity in corporate leadership, judiciary, and entrepreneurship, emphasizing the need for more women in decision-making roles.

The representation of women in corporate decision-making roles remains inadequate with only 34,879 women holding senior management positions in 2023 as compared to 1,86,946 men. A total of 7,62,712 women were part of the Board of Directors as against 19,75,487 men, according to the report ‘Women and Men in India 2023’ by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

In other managerial positions in corporate firms, there were 7,38,949 women as compared to 18,60,348 men, the data sourced from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for the report shows.

Though the number of women in senior management positions has increased from 23,685 in 2017 to 34,879 in 2023, the corresponding increase for men from 1,50,387 to 18,69,46 has been more in terms of percentage.

While senior management positions include CEO, CFO, Company Secretary, Managing Director, Manager and Whole-time Director, the middle management positions include Additional Director, Alternate Director, Nominee Director and Director.

There was better news as far as women entrepreneurs were concerned, with the number of women-led start-ups seeing an increase from 1,528 in 2017 to 17,001 in 2023. The total number of women-led start-ups (start-ups having at least one woman director) recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) since inception till December 2023 is 55,816, which constitute 47.6 per cent of the total start-ups.

“Women-owned business enterprises are playing a prominent role in society by generating employment opportunities in the country, bringing in demographic shifts and inspiring the next generation of women founders,” the report said.

However, in the judiciary, the proportion of women in High Courts was only 14%, while in the Supreme Court, just around 9% of the judges were women. “Such a small representation of women in judicial decision-making process of the country forces us to think about the need to bring about institutional, social and behavioural change by sensitising India’s population to inclusion of women in every sector,” it said.