As many as 13% key management personnel are women, 10% are executive directors and 5% are managing directors or chief executive officers (CEOs) in corporate India, it added.
The survey comes in the backdrop of International Women’s Day, which is being celebrated on Saturday, March 8.
Pranav Haldea, the managing director of PRIME Database Group, said that while India has made significant progress on several parameters, the report demonstrates there is still a long journey ahead.
Women on boards
As of March 6, 97% of the 2,133 NSE-listed companies’ main board have at least one woman director. Of the 57 companies that do not have a woman director, 26 are public sector undertakings, the report said.
However, the number of directorship positions increased to 21% as of March 6, 2025 from 17% in March 2020 and 5% as on March 2014, when the requirement to appoint one woman director on board had just been announced.
Also, the companies that have two or more women has gone up from 29% as of March 31, 2020 to 48% at present.
A total of 86% or 1,837 companies have an independent woman director. The companies have two or more independent directors has also risen from 8% in 2020 to 22% at the moment.
Of the total 8.477 independent director positions, women hold 28% or 2,370 positions. This has increased from 17% in March 2020.
Women hold 10^ or 480 out of the 4,828 executive directorship positions, which is up marginally from 8% in March 2020.
Meanwhile, just 5% or 103 of the 2,133 companies have a woman as an MD or CEO. There are 115 women MDs or CEOs in these 103 companies. Of these, 67% or 77 of them are from the promoter group itself, the survey stated.
Outside professional executive women directors, who are non-promoters, as a whole, hold just 163 of the 2,344 such directorship positions.
Women independent directors are seven years younger than their male counterparts on an average, while non-independent women directors are four years younger.
KMPs, employees and workers
As of March 31, 2024, there are 13% or 540 key management personnel that are women out of a total of 4,190 of them in 1,155 companies. As of March 31, 2023 this was 12%.
A total of 23% or 17.37 lakh women were employed in these 1,155 companies, of the 76.93 lakh employees. It was 23% in the previous year as well.
Gap in remuneration
As of FY24, the median remuneration of male executive directors was 62% higher at 114 lakh in comparison to 71 lakh for women, the report stated.
The median remuneration of male non-promoter executive directors was 93 lakh or 134% more than for women at 40 lakh.
The average of the median remuneration of male KMPs disclosed by the 1,155 companies was almost double that of women KMPs at 165 lakh in comparison to 83 lakh for women, the report added.
The average of the median remuneration of male employees of the mentioned companies was nearly 6 times that on women employees at 95 lakh against 17 lakh for women. It was nearly three times for workers at 22.3 lakh for men and 8.19 lakh for women.
However, women independent directors are being paid similar to their male counterparts with their median remuneration being 4.5 lakh, almost the same as 4.6 lakh for men.
Sectoral representation
As of March 31, 2024, the highest share of women directors was in healthcare at 23% and lowest was in the energy sector at 16%.
For KMPs, the highest sector was diversified at 19% and lowest was in telecommunications at 7%.
Women employees in IT were the highest at 34% and lowest in the industrials space at 6%.
Women workers too were highest in IT at 40% and lowest in utilities at 3%.
