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Nifty 50 cos get dismal score on gender pay parity

By Sohail Khan 19 August 2026, 12:20 am

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Nifty 50 firms get dismal score on gender pay parity

Synopsis

Most Indian companies show a persistent gender pay gap, with women earning less than men. Only a small percentage of companies reported progress towards pay parity in the recent fiscal year. New labor codes strengthen legal foundations against wage discrimination for equal work. Structural career drivers and representation in high-value roles remain unchanged for women. Women are concentrated in junior roles and underrepresented in core business functions.

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iStock-618946910 — Nifty 50 firms get dismal score on gender pay parity; only a handful report median pay favouring women

New Delhi: Gender pay parity is still a distant dream for most Indian companies. In five out of every six companies in the Nifty 50 list, the median woman employee earned less than her median male colleague in FY26, an ET analysis of data compiled from their annual reports showed.

Dismayingly, the share of such companies is almost the same as in FY25, and lower than in FY24.

Of all Nifty 50 companies where median remuneration for men was higher than for women in FY25, only 38% reported a move towards parity in FY26, the analysis showed. The rest saw further deterioration.

The analysis is based on data on gender-wise median employee remuneration reported by companies as part of their regulatory disclosures. While all 50 companies have released their annual reports, the analysis is based on only 48-the other two did not release gender-wise data. Median remuneration does not allow us to compare salaries at the same level of hierarchy, but it is the best available measure of the gender pay gap.

Read more: Top 10 private banks cut over 10,000 jobs in FY26 as AI reshapes hiring

Companies, however, are getting serious about improving pay parity. According to Saundarya Rajesh, managing director at Avtar, a diversity and inclusion strategy firm, the new Labour Codes have strengthened the legal foundation by explicitly prohibiting gender discrimination in wages for the same work.

"But the law can set the floor; organisations have to do the rest," Rajesh said. "Companies need to track pay data across the employee lifecycle and conduct regular pay audits…a lot needs to change in the larger ecosystem."

Nifty 50 companies are just a microcosm of the larger Indian economy; the disparity exists even in nationally representative survey data. The government's Periodic Labour Force Survey shows that in 2025, salaried women earned ₹23,707 per month, while men earned about ₹30,707 as average monthly income in India's million-plus-population cities.

Read more: As country's AI talent gap grows, investors step in to help companies hire

Experts said this could mostly be because more men occupy leadership positions that pay more, driving up their medians well above women's. "The gender pay gap remains persistent because gains in representation are minimal, they are not translating into equal access to high-value roles and the structural career drivers have not changed," said Swetha Joseph, director, talent solutions, India, Aon.

Representation of women in India Inc. has increased by only 2-3 percentage points each year over the last three years, according to Aon's annual research based on data from over 240 companies. "Women comprise only 27% of the workforce (from 2025-26 Aon study) and tend to be concentrated in junior-level roles," said Joseph.

According to Aon's latest Gender and Leadership study, women are underrepresented in core business, revenue-generating and P&L roles, and are often channelled into enabling roles early in their careers.

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