Why deeptech companies need to do a deep-dive on gender diversity

Indian companies have been struggling to achieve gender diversity, and players in the IT segment were seen as becoming more successful in this endeavour. But the gap remains and sectors such as in deeptech have to take more steps to bridge it.

A recent report by Pure Storage with Zinnov, “Towards a gender equitable world, unveiling diversity in deeptech,” analyses deeptech gender diversity from multiple angles. It shows that the global capability centres (GCCs) employ 1.66 million people and 466,000 are women — that is a 28% gender diversity representation.

In the junior levels, the diversity is higher at 37%. But as people move up the corporate hierarchy, the diversity gap becomes wider. It is 6.7% at the executive level.


Across 31 deeptech sectors, women account for 26.5% at the junior level, 24.5% at the middle level, 19.2% at senior level, 11.9% at the top level and just 5.1% at the executive level.

Part of this gap stems from the availability of talent pool in a sector that requires highly specialised skills.

Getting people who are aware of the latest advancements is even more difficult. As many as 43.9% of the people surveyed for the report say deeptech talent is difficult to find, while 16.7% say it is becoming very difficult to find such talent.

Personal aspirations, higher studies, lack of mentorship and marriage are the reasons for dropouts at the junior levels. At the mid level, caregiving responsibilities, maternity, work-life balance and career advancement limitations cause issues for women employees. At the level of 9-12 years of experience, health, gender bias and lack of leadership development opportunities create issues, apart from family and caregiving responsibilities.

These further exacerbate at the executive levels because of additions of unconscious bias pay disparity, lifestage-related changes such as menopause. On the positive side, women can choose other career pivots or entrepreneurial opportunities at every stage.

The positive outlook is that women represent 23.1% of the workforce in deeptech; but it is expected to increase to 27.3% over five years.

Zinnov’s analysis also assessed data on women engineering graduates from 2004 to 2023 across computer science, electronics and communication streams from 42 top engineering colleges that GCCs hire from as well as 23 top colleges that deeptech companies hire from. The data show that fewer women are graduating in these courses, but women who graduated outperform during placements.