This project spans three major automotive manufacturing clusters – Delhi NCR, Pune and Bangalore-Chennai , and focuses on enabling low-income women, living in nearby urban and peri-urban areas, to access factory jobs in the automotive sector. Through interventions and engagements with key industry players, the project also seeks to create better workplaces for women in the automotive industry.

Our partners include::

• The Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) (971 member firms)
• The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) (48 member firms)
• Tier 1 Automotive Component manufacturers including Abilities India Pistons & Rings Ltd. (Ghaziabad), Sansera Engineering Ltd. (Bengaluru), Subros Ltd. (Noida and Manesar), Sona BLW Precision Forgings Ltd. (Chennai), and Tata AutoComp Systems Ltd. (Chakan, Pune)
• Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) including Ashok Leyland Ltd. (Chennai and Hosur), Tata Motors Ltd. ( Pune), and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (Chakan, Pune)

The project also engages training institutions like Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), the Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC), staffing organizations, recruitment contractors, and HR teams building a comprehensive picture of the barriers women face across the employment pipeline.

Our goal is to co-create and test a model for gender-inclusive factory jobs that can improve recruitment, retention, and productivity and be scaled across the sector through industry-wide platforms like ACMA and SIAM.

Phase 1: Diagnostic Research

We began by tracing the end-to-end employment pipeline from training institutes to recruitment agencies to factory floors. We engaged with Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), the Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC), staff, trainers, and women in technical courses. Within the firms, we conducted qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with women and men across different roles and levels, including shop-floor workers, HR teams, supervisors, managers and senior leaders. We also interacted with job seeking women and contractors/ recruitment agencies employed by firms to identify structural and social barriers that deter women from applying or staying in these jobs. The insights from this phase inform opportunity areas for the firms, and are being aggregated and synthesized into a Gender Inclusivity Framework -a resource that maps challenges across the employment journey and outlines actionable areas for intervention.

Phase 2: Piloting Workplace Interventions

To complement the findings from Phase 1, and understand the features and amenities valued by women in workspaces, we conducted household surveys and focused group discussions with hundreds of women across industrial areas. These were then used to develop an intervention in collaboration with our partner firms, to provide improved blue collar job opportunities to women. Through an RCT, we will study whether better-designed blue-collar jobs can increase female employment in male-dominated industries. We will also evaluate whether workplace improvements, beyond increasing recruitment, can enhance worker productivity outcomes such as retention rates, productivity and absenteeism, and potentially benefit both employers and workers.

Phase 3: Industry Engagement

To drive sector-wide adoption, we have launched theGender Champions Consortium (GCC). The GCC is anchored by a Secretariat with members from GBL, SIAM, ACMA, and the Gates Foundation, auto components manufacturing and OEM firms with active engagement of relevant government bodies, nonprofits, staffing agencies, and other ecosystem players.

The offerings of GCC include workshop-style thematic convenings (online and offline) having expert-led discussions to support capacity building and share best practices for the wider automotive sector. Further, a knowledge hub in the form of a microsite and regular newsletters that hosts learning resources to promote exchange of knowledge is also part of the GCC offerings.

The learnings from the various thematic convenings focused on recruitment, culture building, skill development and growth, among many topics will converge towards the end of the year in the form of A Gender Charter for the automotive sector. This charter, co-developed through the GCC members and ecosystem practitioners, will include a public commitment to achieve gender diversity goals and would serve as a benchmark that could be adopted by similar industries in manufacturing and beyond.

At the end of the engagement, the consolidated learnings from all three phases of the project will be shared as a Gender Inclusivity Playbook.

The project follows a mixed-methods approach:

• Qualitative Research: In-depth interviews, Focus Group Discussions with workers, contractors, trainers, and HR teams
• Quantitative Research: A randomized controlled trial, offering jobs to potential women candidates to examine how amenities impact women’s labor supply decisions and impacts productivity (absenteeism, retention, physical productivity) and worker wellbeing
• Solution design and operational pilot planning: Working in key auto clusters, we will conduct scoping and pilot design exercises focused on two pressing challenges: worker accommodation and safe and reliable transport to work.

We are currently implementing and will be tracking the following outcomes:

• Women’s labour supply decisions for job opportunities offered through the RCT
• Productivity outcomes for women, once employed in the factories:
  – Retention rates
  – Productivity
  – Absenteeism rates

This project is designed to generate practical, scalable solutions for improving gender equity in Indian manufacturing. With the backing of industry leaders like ACMA and SIAM, our initiative is well-positioned to influence mainstream recruitment and workplace practices across the automotive industry.

The final deliverables will include:

• A Gender Inclusivity Playbook compiling insights, intervention outcomes, and best practices gender mainstreaming from across the sector
• A peer-learning platform through the Gender Champions Consortium, where firms can build on each other’s progress
• A Gender Charter, developed from the learnings from the GCC, which will be publicly endorsed and adopted by the auto sector firms.

These findings aim to serve as a blueprint not only for the automotive industry but for making the larger manufacturing industry gender-inclusive.