E-Paper
Women, work and the mathematics of formal opportunity
This article is authored by Sunitha Karthikeyan, senior vice president and head, HR, Quess Corp.
India’s workforce discourse often suffers from boardroom bias. We obsess over the glass ceiling at the top 1% while overlooking the foundational shift happening at the entry level. The latest data from the Quess Pulse H1 FY26 reveals a compelling paradox: while women represent 17% of the flexi-staffing workforce (approximately 82,000 associates), they remain below the broader flexi-average and the national LFPR of 34%.
The gap isn't a lack of intent; it is a lack of architected inclusion. As we observe Women’s Day 2026, the theme #GiveToGain must be viewed not as a call for corporate charity, but as a blueprint for economic redesign.
For decades, the urban migration penalty has kept Indian women out of the workforce. Moving to a Tier-1 city for a job often meant navigating safety concerns and high living costs that wiped out entry-level wages.
However, a structural denominator shift is underway. Our data shows that 61% of our women workforce deployment are now occurring outside Tier-1 cities, with Tier-3 locations alone accounting for 36%. When retail, BFSI, and telecom expand their formal footprints into district markets, they bring more than just jobs; they bring “Proximity-Led Empowerment.”
By bringing PF-linked, ESI-protected roles to a woman’s doorstep, we dissolve the historical barriers of distance. This isn't just logistics; it's the liberation of a latent talent pool that was previously "locked" by geography.
The prevailing myth is that India’s women need hand-holding to enter the formal sector. The numbers suggest they only need opportunity design. Consider the education-to-role alignment we see today:
- The postgrad pivot: 24% of female postgraduates are successfully converting to formal roles in HR, office support, and telesales when the structure is provided.
- The entry-level engine: 21% of women with a 10th-pass qualification (representing over 33,000 associates) are powering retail supervision and customer service.
When 96% of female associates have at least a 10th-grade education, capability is no longer the hurdle. The challenge for corporate India is to stop measuring women hired as a static KPI and start measuring the systemic match. We must ask: Is the role designed for the candidate’s local reality?
In H1 FY26 alone, we saw the creation of roughly 26,000 first-time formal accounts (UANs), with women claiming a significant share. In the context of Viksit Bharat, a UAN is more than paperwork, it is a digital economic identity. It represents a household transitioning from the volatility of cash-in-hand to the stability of social security, insurance, and verifiable credit history.
States like Maharashtra (18% female share) and Tamil Nadu (16%) are already proving that when industrial and service maturity meet compliant staffing, the needle moves. These states aren't outliers; they are evidence of what happens when the give (structure and safety) meets the gain (resilient, loyal talent).
As leaders, we must move from chasing quotas to architecting inclusion. My prediction is simple: The current 17% female share in flexi-staffing will double to 34% only when we scale Tier-2/3 service hubs and leverage the new labour codes to protect the flexi nature of women’s work.
This Women’s Day, let us recognise that the real surge isn't happening in high-rise boardrooms, it is brewing in the district markets of India. #GiveToGain isn't an aspirational slogan; it is the cold, hard arithmetic of India’s trillion-dollar future.
This article is authored by Sunitha Karthikeyan, senior vice president and head, HR, Quess Corp.
