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Bengaluru: Bengaluru emerged as India's top city for working women in 2024, climbing to the number one spot from the second place in 2023, according to a report by workplace culture consultancy Avtar.
Bengaluru achieved a City Inclusion Score (CIS) of 47.15, edging out Chennai, which scored 46.31, as per the Top Cities for Women in India (TCWI) 2024 report released by Avtar recently.
Bengaluru's performance was bolstered by its IT industry, which has one of the highest employment rates for women.
Avtar launched the TCWI index in 2022 to critically examine the role cities play in enabling women’s employment.
The 2024 study assessed 120 cities on inclusivity potential and ability to support gender equitable environment. Each city was assigned a CIS, which was derived from two components: Social Inclusion Score (SIS) and Industrial Inclusion Score (IIS).
The SIS was the cumulative score of four indicators: city livability, safety, women’s representation in employment and women’s empowerment.
The IIS evaluated a city on three indicators: inclusive organisations, inclusive industries and career enablers.
Based on these metrics, an aggregate score was calculated for each of the 120 cities, and they were ranked according to these scores.
While Bengaluru led in both CIS and IIS, it ranked third in SIS. Its SIS was 36.72 and IIS 81.33.
The report noted that while Bengaluru's IIS indicates robust industrial inclusion, its SIS underscores the need for further progress in social inclusion to achieve equilibrium.
In terms of women’s rating of inclusion in major cities, Bengaluru scored 7.54 in skilling and employment, 7.44 in caregiving support, 7.52 in infrastructure, 6.83 in efficiency of government bodies, 6.97 in quality of life and 6.17 in safety.
Bengaluru also scored very well on the Ease of Living (EOL) index with a score of 66.7 out of 100. EOL is the index brought out by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs that examines the livability of cities across three pillars, which include a total of 14 categories and 50 indicators on quality of life, economic ability and sustainability, the report notes.
After Bengaluru and Chennai, other cities in top ten were Mumbai (41.11), Hyderabad (38.89), Pune (36.88), Kolkata (34.18), Ahmedabad (30.56), Delhi (28.5), Gurugram (25.52) and Coimbatore (24.4).
Mangaluru stood 24th with a CIS of 17.99. In all, there were 16 South Indian cities in top 25, including eight from Tamil Nadu, three from Kerala, two from Karnataka, and one each from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Puducherry.
Other cities from Karnataka were: Belagavi (27th, CIS: 17.46); Hubballi-Dharwad (28th, CIS: 17.44); Mysuru (50th, CIS: 14.81); Tumakuru (91st, CIS: 8.68); Shivamogga (94th, CIS: 8.33) and Davangere (98th, CIS: 8.11).