Indian women have made great strides toward achieving gender equality in their society. For example, India was one of the first countries in the world to elect a woman as prime minister. Despite the developments, Indian women still face limited professional options today.

Students generally start choosing a career path around ages 17 to 18. Although students in India are consistently under pressure to pursue the career pathway, their parents decide as “most practical.” Parents seem to influence their children’s perception of what the right career to follow is. In a recent survey by Joblist, the data showed that 48% of the people surveyed felt their parents strongly influenced their career path, while 40% felt pressured to follow their parent’s career advice.

Many Indians have heard something along the lines of, “If you are a girl, you will become a doctor, and if you are a boy, you will become a computer engineer,” from adults.

In an Indian society, specific career paths like teaching, health care, and fashion designing, among others, are perceived as feminine. ILOSTAT data states that the job with the highest female participation is personal care workers (88%), followed by other careers such as health associate professionals (76%), cleaners & helpers (74%), general & keyboard clerks (71%). In the same data, it can be viewed that 3% of the women work as building and related trades workers, and 3% as drivers and mobile plant operators.

Other limitations, like safety concerns, affect many girls’ professional options. For example, girls are often told they should not have jobs that require them to work at night or travel far from home.

A recent survey by Roshni Chakrabarty on career option awareness among Indian students showed that most students are unaware of careers other than the seven careers primarily influenced by parents. About 93% of Indian students aged 14 to 21 were aware of only seven career options, although there are more than 250 career options available in India. The most common considerations for career choice were Engineering (23.53%), Accounts and Finance (11.81%), Computer and I.T. (9.56%), Medicine (8.08%), Management (6.71%), Designing (6.06%), and Law (94.03%).

According to the All India Survey of Higher Education, the number of women enrolled in institutions to receive higher education started at 1.2 million women from 2010 to 2011. It increased to 17.4 million from 2018 to 2019; however, the number is low compared to the percentage of women in the workspace. Janet L Yellen wrote in an article that fewer than 2 percent of all 18 to 24 year olds were enrolled in an institution of higher education, and just ⅓ of those were women. Even after higher education, fewer women in business administration, computers, and engineering are employed. The careers that seemingly favor women pay them about 17% less than men doing the same tasks/job.

So the question becomes, what can we work on to fix these disparities? Parents need to start by working on investing in their daughters' education. The most significant thing that everyone, regardless of gender, should have is the power to make their own career choice and to work in a career field they find enjoyment in. These careers should have no labels attached, “feminine” or not. In closing, proper awareness and freedom of career choices need to become available to all, and Indian society has a lot to work on.