NAREDCO MAHI Convention: Gender integration important in growth of real estate sector in India

The second NAREDCO MAHI Convention, held on March 3, 2023, called for increased participation of women in real estate and construction sectors to achieve $5 trillion Indian economy. In her welcome address, Dr. Ananta S Raghuvanshi, Founder Member, and President NAREDCO MAHI, observed that gender integration in real estate would prove to be an important milestone in the growth of the real estate sector in India, recognizing the contribution of women employees equally. She also felt that skilled workforce in real estate is critical to achieving near-perfection in construction.

Rajan Bandelkar, President, NAREDCO, focused on establishing linkages between past and future real estate practices with the integration of modern technologies in his address. He emphasised that the impression that real estate remains a male-dominated industry must disappear, which would be possible if female work participation is encouraged.

Alok Gupta, Director General and Preeti Singh, Deputy Director General, NAREDCO, were also present. The focus of the convention was to build real estate for every section of society so that the government’s commitment under PM Modi is fulfilled, and other stakeholders in the sector enjoy a win-win situation of building India.

A joint report made by JLL and NAREDCO MAHI, released during the event, indicates that women’s participation in real estate is estimated at 7 million against men’s 50 million, and there is a 15% pay disparity in the leadership roles of women. Only 2% of women hold leadership roles in construction companies, which needs to be addressed.

Progression over last decade

Focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I): More focus on inclusion and diversity in organizations has led to women taking up roles like sales, marketing, asset management, brokerage, construction in real estate, which were earlier more male-dominated domains.

Building ecosystem: Adaptability of women in the sector is breaking the stereotypes of work-life balance for women as a result of which firms are introducing women focused initiatives like creche facility, sabbaticals, etc.

Entry of multinational firms: Entry of MNC’s in the Indian market has given women greater avenues of growth and women have proved themselves to be an invaluable asset to the sector.

RERA guidelines: The fundamental changes made to RERA have resulted in greater transparency in the real estate and construction sector to include information on the percentage of women workers working on construction sites, the presence of required facilities such as proper toilets and availability of working crèches for all real estate projects in India.

What is going well

The women participation has almost doubled in the last five years in the workforce of surveyed companies pointing to positive reinforcement of diverse hiring.

80% employees feel companies are working towards addressing the gender imbalance at senior levels. 70% employees feel there is leadership focus on enhancing the DE&I culture in the organisation.

While women in C-suite roles overwhelmingly do not think that gender has played a role in missing out on career growth, the remaining women in other roles are split equally with 50% feeling that gender has impacted their career growth at some point.