One-fourth women workforce intends to quit job: ASSOCHAM

About one-fourth working women, especially those engaged in private sector at different levels desire to quit their jobs for plethora of reasons like inconvenient working hours/late sitting, gender bias/workplace harassment, lack of safety, poor working conditions, family/motherhood, to pursue higher education and others, noted a just-concluded survey conducted by ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation.

"About 40 per cent of working mothers want to quit jobs to raise their kids," noted the survey conducted by ASSOCHAM under the aegis of its Social Development Foundation ahead of International Women's Day celebrated globally on March eighth.

ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation had interacted with a total of about 500 working women including 200 working mothers in 10 cities of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune during the course of past fortnight to gauge their career related goals.

About 25 percent of the total respondents said they want to quit their jobs and cited various reasons ranging from inconvenient working hours/late sitting, pay gap, gender bias/workplace harassment, lack of safety, poor working conditions, to pursue higher education, family related issues and others, highlighted the findings of the ASSOCHAM's survey.

"Gender bias together with workplace harassment and inconvenient working hours remained top reasons as to why majority of respondents wanted to quit their jobs," noted the ASSOCHAM survey.

Motherhood and lack of quality time being spent with family was the primary reason for 80 out of 200 working mothers interviewed by ASSOCHAM representatives across all aforesaid cities.

Talking about the harassment, about 30 percent of the total women interviewed by ASSOCHAM said they had experienced harassment at work and were denied promotion and plum assignments.

Besides, many of these also said they did not get much support from their authorities when and if they complained and as a result felt bogged down further due to guilt and shame.

Most of the respondents said their organizations do not have redressal mechanisms in place and as such do not comply with legal requirements to provide a safe workplace for women and display a very casual approach to such issues.