For example, a recent news report on recruitment and human resources services company TeamLease said that there has been a 6-fold rise in the hiring of women apprentices in factories month-on-month now when compared to the period before July 2023.

Truck manufacturer Ashok Leyland has all-women assembly lines whereas Ola Electric is also transitioning to assembly lines and an entire factory that will be powered only by women. Further, slowly but steadily, wage parity between men and women is becoming a reality.

Although, traditionally, women on shopfloor were largely in the electronics and auto sectors, today, they are showing their prowess in pharmaceuticals, cement, food processing and medical devices. In fact, experts say that companies in the electronics and auto sectors have become completely gender agnostic in their recruitment for assembly line workers.

It was suggested that companies are also looking at the inclusion from rural parts of the country to work in the factories.

“Gender diversity has increasingly become a focus for Indian manufacturing companies. Several manufacturing companies have Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) programmes, Diversity Councils and Diversity teams,” said Sushma Nair, Mission Director, India Diversity Forum (IDF),

“One of the greatest positive factors for more women’s participation is technology that has grown by leaps and bounds – removing the obstacle of physical strength in several functions,” Nair added. What gives?

Evolving Organisational Mindset

Companies are inducting more women on the shopfloor for a variety of reasons.

For one, gender diversity is increasingly a global phenomenon. Therefore, when MNCs come to India, they bring along with them human resource best practices.

For example, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, as part of its global ‘DiveIN’ (Diversity and Inclusive) initiative has employed more than 20 per cent of its factory workers as women.

Two, there is a top-down policy push where a corporation includes diversity and inclusiveness as a priority. That then trickles downward to the factory level. For example, the Tata Group has a Diversity Council at the group level to help improve the women's ratio in their group companies.

Taking the cue, several Tata Motors factories are today run by all-women assembly lines, especially those manufacturing the sports utility vehicles Harrier and Safari.

Additionally, Tata Motors under the ‘Kaushalya’ scheme has ramped up the skill-upgrading of a lot of women. As per the design of the programme, the automotive company hires 12th-grader women, trains them on the shopfloor and gives them a stipend.

Women employees with higher education are also hired and trained for factory supervisory roles.

Three, Nair of IDF says that companies and the government are increasingly realising that the Make In India programme will be more successful with diversity in workforces.

Companies have redeveloped physical infrastructure and factory floors by leveraging technology and ergonomics to be more friendly to women. A company like Vedanta also employs women security guards at factories with newly designed workwear, especially for females.

At Tata Motors, they have introduced robotics, changed the height of some workstations, and redesigned certain lifts, tackles and torquing tools to be more suited to female employees.

The cement sector in India has traditionally been a male-bastion. However, some of it is changing: the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA) has drawn up an initiative called ‘Women Of Cement’, which encourages companies to have gender leadership in their association of companies.

For example, Madhuri Mehta, Group HR Head of Dalmia Bharat and Manisha Pattiwar, Vice President, Ultra Tech Cement have been tasked with special responsibilities to encourage greater women participation in their factories.

Fourth, there is greater parity in wages between men and women today in the manufacturing sector even though it is not all-pervading. Some HR heads of companies have realised that unless there is parity, women employees will leave.

Finally, changing societal culture and attitudes and more women going for higher education have brought them from homes to shopfloors.

Unfinished Task

Despite all the progress, there is still some way to go. According to an analysis of government data by the Center for Economic Data Analysis (CEDA) of Ashoka University, there are only 1.6 million women -- which is about 20 per cent of the total workforce -- in factories. Of this, 0.68 million (43 per cent) are in the factories of Tamil Nadu.

Moreover, women factory workers are largely in the three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. Outside, the southern belt, Manipur in the northeast also encourages women in manufacturing.

“Traditional challenges of manufacturing being a male bastion are breaking down through socio-cultural shifts as well as conscious sensitisation by companies as part of their D&I initiatives, including support for life events and programmes for getting women back to work from career breaks,” Nair of IDF summed up.