No great strides forward: India Inc sports dismal track record on women's representation, salaries

Women directors on the board are significantly underpaid, compared to male directors. (Representative image)

The world celebrated March 8 as International Women's Day, and not one to miss a beat, India Inc stepped up to the pedestal and celebrated the day in full force.

However, there is data to bolster the belief that these celebrations might be a superficial dressing that covers up the grimy reality of the woeful track record of women within India Inc, be it in terms of pay or in terms of presence on the board of directors.

Currently, women directors make up only 17 percent of board members, as per data compiled by investment portal Trendlyne.com.

This is in stark contrast to the boardroom diversity visible at a global level. As per a November 2022 study by Institutional Investor Advisory Services, a proxy advisory firm, boardroom diversity continues to improve with an average of almost 24 percent female representation in corporate boardrooms. Europe and North America sit above the global average, with women making up 34.4 percent and 28.6 percent of company boards, respectively. Country-wise France leads the pack at 44.5 percent women representation on boards in 2021.

India has scaled up its female representation on the boards of companies incrementally. From 6 percent in 2014, the number paced up to 14 percent in 2018 and by the end of November last year stood at 17.6 percent when accounting for the directorship of NIFTY-500 companies.

The data by IIaS does not make for an exciting read. Here's a quick albeit demoralising sampling:

• Women chair the board of only 22 of the NIFTY-500 companies.
• Only 25 women are CEOs and another 62 hold executive directorships
• In aggregate, the NIFTY-500 companies have 2,960 committees, for an average of 5.9 committees for each entity. 442 (14.9 percent) of these are chaired by women and the remaining 2,518 by men.
• The share of women directors holding senior executive roles such as Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director was low at 3 percent.
• Of the 827 women directorships held in 2022, just 11 percent (87) were executive positions. Most of the senior management of NIFTY-500 companies, not just the Chair, remains male-dominated.

Salary slippage

Women directors on the board are significantly underpaid, compared to male directors. This is, in part, because of the higher representation of women as independent directors.

Data from Trendlyne indicates that in the Nifty 500, only 24 percent of women board members are non-independent directors compared to 47 percent of men. And despite the increased presence on boards, women are often in non-executive positions. Only 7 percent of executive positions, which encompass decision-making roles like MD or CFO are women.

Across indices, as the table indicates, women directors are paid only one-third of the salaries earned by men.

Trendlyne's data makes an argument that in the case of the highest-paid women directors, most are part of the promoter groups of family-owned companies.

Lastly, men’s median salaries in commercial vehicles, broadcasting and cable TV are through the roof. They are earning roughly 140 percent more than their counterparts in the same industry. At the same time, footwear, refineries and petro-products industries pay women more. Women in these industries earn 45 percent more than men. One of the reasons why women’s salaries are higher in these industries is because they are in management positions, or are linked to promoters.