Indian women forge a path to financial literacy, education, and careers

With literacy rates for women 15% lower than men, and one of the lowest female labor force participation rates globally, India’s rapid economic growth has not equally benefitted roughly half of the population, despite strides in recent years.

The Modi government’s “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” (Save the daughter, Educate the daughter) initiative frames the solution well: creating equal value for women must start with education. Encouragingly, the number of Indian women enrolling themselves for higher education has risen from 1.2 million in 2010 to 17.4 million in 2017 (All India Survey of Higher Education), yet there is still work required to create more equitable futures for India’s 497 million women.

Bloomberg is firmly committed to advancing the prospects of India’s women through education and has supported Room to Read in India since 2008, including their Girls Education Programme.

In 2019, Bloomberg and UBS expanded the “Girls Take Wall Street” series globally— an initiative designed to expose girls to the potential of a career in finance, empower them to join this increasingly diverse industry, and encourage them to push for more inclusivity, especially in leadership roles.

India was the first “Girls Take” location in Asia for 2019, hosting both “Girls Take GIFT City,” attended by 44 female students from Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, and “Girls Take Dalal Street,” which welcomed 77 students from across Mumbai and Pune to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The “Girls Take” project gives students a chance to hear from senior finance executives and members of the Bloomberg Women’s Buy-Side Network at career panels and speed networking sessions, where discussion centers on the variety of roles in the finance industry and what it takes to succeed. Employee mentors from Bloomberg and UBS also share their career journeys, and answer questions about opportunities available in their fields.

“It’s heartening to witness these girls getting inspired and encouraged,” says Mahima Gupta, a Senior Equity Analyst at Bloomberg’s office in Mumbai who participates as a career mentor. “To help dispel some of their doubt and fear, help them parse through their own unique set of challenges, it’s such an important thing to be a part of.”

The events provide a crucial window into exciting, evolving career opportunities that many young Indian women have long believed were closed to them. They make what might seem like an overwhelming industry more straightforward. “Helping young women understand [roles] in the finance industry is sure to attract and inspire them,” says Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD & CEO of the Bombay Stock Exchange.

“We’re so lucky to have these opportunities,” one Girls Take student told us in October 2019. “My mother never had them.”

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