Over a million more women have gained direct employment in the Indian tech sector over the past ten years, highlighting the government, academia, and industry's joint efforts to promote and support inclusive action. 9 lakh women, or 30% of the 3 million directly employed in the sector in 2012–13, worked in Indian IT. More than 2 million people, or 36% of the 5.3 million people employed overall in the sector, have increased by more than a million.

 

Women's representation has increased as a result of a number of interrelated factors, such as businesses creating progressive policies to attract more women to the workforce, more women enrolling in computer science courses at colleges, visible examples of women in leadership positions, and state governments passing legislation to allow women to work night shifts.

 

Debjani Ghosh, president of the IT industry's apex body Nasscom, said it is encouraging to see organisations formalising DE&I (diversity, equity & inclusion) strategies, budgeting for it and embedding it as a critical component to organisational culture and values. "We are seeing outstanding efforts from leaders in re-imagining benchmarks and accountability," she said.

 

Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, partner at Catalincs and former CMD of Cognizant India, said the number of seats in computer science engineering and related disciplines has expanded rapidly across India, and in states like Tamil Nadu, it has more than doubled. "Given the nature of work, many female students opt for this discipline of study over others. Two, the pandemic has enabled work to move to where great talent resides, including tier-2 and tier-3 locations, thereby enabling greater women participation. In some progressive companies, women as a proportion of workforce in tier-2 and tier-3 locations is well over 50%," he said.