Hiring women for leadership roles grows to 23.2 pc

Hiring women for leadership roles in India has grown to 23.2 per cent across industries in early 2024, a new report showed.

According to the report by the professional networking platform LinkedIn and public policy consulting firm The Quantum Hub, there has been an overall growth in the representation of females across the workforce over the years, rising from 23.9 per cent in 2016 to 26.8 per cent in 2024.

However, slight fluctuations were noticed between 2022 and 2024, with a drop of 0.5 percentage points.

“The percentage of women in senior leadership roles grew from 16.6 per cent in 2016 to 18.7 per cent in 2023, but has dipped slightly to 18.3 per cent in 2024, which may correct by the end of the year,” the report said.

The data, self-reported by more than 1 billion LinkedIn members covers trends from 68 million companies, 135,000 schools, and 41,000 skills globally.

“Recent focus on ‘women-led development’ has led to concerted efforts by both policymakers and business leaders to tackle these challenges.

I hope this report will inspire tangible steps towards narrowing gender disparities, particularly in senior leadership positions,” said Aditi Jha, Board Member and Country Head, Legal & Government Affairs, LinkedIn India.

The findings also reveal sector-wide variations in women’s leadership representation. Industries such as Education at 30 per cent and Government Administration at 29 per cent have the highest representation of women in leadership roles, followed by Administrative and Support Services and Hospitals and Health Care, each with 23 per cent.

Other sectors such as Technology, Information, and Media & Financial Services each have moderate female representation in leadership at 19 per cent, according to the report.