India Inc bats for women empowerment on International Mother’s Day

• Women employability in India has been consistently low -- at 25% of the total working population over the last five years.
  
• Startups and companies in India are promoting campaigns as an effort to increase women engagement.
  
• Under the ‘Start-Ups’ initiative, the industrial body Assocham has come up with partnership program via skill development and vocational training.

This Mother’s Day, India inc has stepped up its efforts to promote women participation in the workforce across roles.

While women headcount in the organisations and top-level roles may have shown growth, overall women participation in India’s workforce has declined from 31.2% in 2011 to 23.3% in 2017-18, according to data by the National Sample Survey Office. (NSSO).

While many brands are stuck to the traditional Mother's Day messages of mothers being caretakers, some other brands went a step ahead and embraced a more empowering message.

Taking up women empowerment on the occasion of International Mother’s Day, Indian trade association Assocham stressed on the importance of enabling a workplace environment that boosts women participation.

“Rising participation of women in the workforce will need a different environment in which child care, working hours, and workplace structures should be transformed. Several firms have already started reorienting and aligning their operational structures with the changing needs of working women, given today’s environment of increased mobility and nuclear family structures,” Assocham President BK Goenka said in a statement to TOI. Among its initiatives is partnership program for skill development and vocational training, and an all women-run manufacturing company.

Moving the needle to women in sports, sportswear brand Adidas, India, launched a new campaign film ‘SHE BREAKS BARRIERS’ as an effort to increase women engagement, news agency IANS reported.

'She Breaks Barriers' showcases three powerful and leading national icons -- sprinter Hima Das, heptathlete Swapna Barman and boxer Nikhat Zareen and delivers on the message that each woman has the capability to achieve their dreams, no matter how big, and that no barrier is daunting enough to hold them back.

Apparel company BIBA made a reference to all mothers including entrepreneurs.


Celebrating the event, e-tailer Flipkart tweeted a series with the hashtag BeLikeMom to strengthen the power of women.



See also:
Women’s day in numbers: 9 grim reminders that Indian women are still a long way off from empowerment