Education, educators and the glass ceiling in labour markets | Number Theory

The irony is that women also face a glass ceiling in the labour market for education.

India is not an easy place for a working woman. The broadest labour market entry benchmark, the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), which measures the share of the population working or looking for work, has a 28.4 percentage point gender gap against women. A disproportionate burden of household and care work is a major reason for this gap — 44.4% of women (the number is just 0.5% for men) not in the labour force cite household responsibilities for dropping out. Even when they join the workforce, there is a gender gap in payments against women. The irony is that women also face a glass ceiling in the labour market for education.

Just getting into the workforce is not enough for a woman. India’s labour market data shows that women also tend to earn less than men in similar professions (FILE)

Education helps women plug gender gap in pay

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  Education helps women plug gender gap in pay

  Just getting into the workforce is not enough for a woman. India’s labour market data shows that women also tend to earn less than men in similar professions. The gender gap in earnings is not just in casual work but also seen in salaried work. The average salaried woman worker in India earned ₹18,353 per month, 76% of what the average salaried man earned in 2025, according to an HT analysis of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data. However, what the data also shows is that the gender gap in earnings for salaried workers falls as education levels increase. The gains are consistent and peak at educational attainment just after finishing school; in a diploma/certificate course attainment. After obtaining a diploma, the gap narrows a bit and women workers starts earning 86% of their male counterpart, which is the highest that women get to in closing the gender gap. The gap increases slightly once again at education levels of graduate or post-graduate degree.
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  Salaried women workers are heavily concentrated in a handful of sectors

  The 2025 PLFS data shows that half the regular wage/salaried women are confined to just three sectors. About 25% of women are in education, another 14% of women work in a sector called “Activities of households as employers” (a fancy name for the employment as maids, cooks, waiter, valets butlers, laundresses, gardeners, care-takers, governesses, babysitters, tutors, secretaries, etc), and another 13% in human health and social work sector (they are clubbed together). In contrast, only 13% salaried/regular wage men work in these sectors. To be sure, it is not the case that women’s wages are lower than men because they work in these sectors. For the same industry and education level, women’s wages are largely less than that of men.
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  Women school teachers outnumber men now, but they are a minority at higher grades or in government schools

  The gender ratio of teachers in India has increased from 1.0 in 2018-19 to 1.22 in 2025-26, according to the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data for different rounds. This however does not tell us the entire story. The higher gender ratio is observed only in private unaided schools (2.15) and not in government and government-aided schools (0.84 and 0.92, respectively) where men still dominate. The latter would normally pay much more than the former. Even in private unaided schools, this increased gender ratio is observed only up to secondary education, not just in private schools but across all management types. The same narrative plays out in higher education. All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2023-24 data shows that the gender ratio is improving across different faculty positions from 2011-12 but more significantly for the tutor position. Moving up the hierarchy from assistant professor to associate professor to professor, the statistics for female faculty appear grim, with gender ratios of 0.8, 0.6, and 0.5 respectively. To sum it up, female teachers are increasing in both schools and colleges but continue to occupy lower rungs.
• Things have improved in education sector as entry isn’t the major concern for women now. What these numbers hint towards is that women face a different kind of a disadvantage in education sector which forces them to stay confined to lower teaching as well as pay grades. Whether this is a result of active discrimination – proving it will require evidence that women and men with similar qualifications are not being given equal opportunities – or women ending up taking low-skill teaching jobs because it’s a relatively easier sector to work in than say manufacturing, needs more statistical evidence to conclude either way.