Women’s participation in IT is higher both in comparison to other sectors in the country, and in comparison to representation in the sector in other countries. The increase in numbers of women in engineering education and the mushrooming of several private engineering colleges since the 1990s catered to a growth in demand for engineers in the IT industry. IT–BPM is the largest private sector employer— delivering 3.7 million jobs; this industry is contributing about 7.9 per cent of GDP at present—compared to 1.2 per cent in 1999–2000 (IT & ITES 2005–2006, 2018).
There has been some slowdown in terms of hiring—the industry added 230,000 jobs in 2011–2012 (Gupta 2015) and 105,000 in 2017–2018 (IT & ITES 2018). However, private equity/venture capital in IT services has grown at the CAGR of 27.25 per cent in financial year 2017–2018 (IT & ITES 2018). Further, while the economy grew in terms of GDP from 6.4 per cent in 2013 to 6.9 per cent in 2017, the revenues from IT–BPO (now IT–BPM)4 industry have grown much faster at CAGR of 9.5 per cent between 2013 and 2018 according to the World Bank statistics.
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Women constituted 21 per cent of the total IT workforce in 2001 (NASSCOM 2001), increasing to about 30 per cent in 2012 (NASSCOM 2013, cited in Gupta 2015); 28% according to Sudha 2012). At present, for FY 2017–2018, the IT and ITES sector employs 34 per cent women according to Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology.6 This is higher than the 20.5 per cent average level of female participation in the formal economy in 2011, for which statistics are available (OGD 2012–2015) and higher than either in public or private sector separately.
Source: The Print
