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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RESEARCH IN COMMERCE, MANAGEMENT & SOCIAL SCIENCE (IJARCMSS) [ Vol. 9 | No. 2 (IV) | April - June, 2026 ]

The Caregiving Penalty for Mid-Career Women: A Strategic Retention Challenge in Urban Indian Corporates

Dr. Vibha Batra

While corporations have been focused on recruiting at entry level, the steep drop in the percentage of women between entry level and senior management positions, the so-called broken rung, persists as an unsolved problem, even in India, where women make up one-third of entry-level recruitment but just 17 percent of C-suite positions [1,2]. Studies point out that many factors are behind this, and this paper focuses on what is called the caregiving penalty, the career stagnation, lack of promotion, and lower wages experienced by those with more unpaid domestic and care obligations, which is discussed in the classic sociological literature on the motherhood wage penalty, as well as new studies on the career penalties of eldercare faced specifically by mid-career women [3,18]. The caregiving penalty framework is applied in this paper to urban corporate settings in India, where the India 2024 Time Use Survey shows that women spend nearly two-three times the number of minutes per day in unpaid domestic and care work compared to men, and where social norms for joint families impose specific eldercare duties on mid-career women juggling childcare and eldercare [13]. Another topic covered in the paper is the negative labour market effects of increased maternity leave in India, introduced in 2017, that led to decreased employment of women at fertility age while having minimal effects on wages [21,22]. The last part of the paper redefines the concept of work-life balance and makes it more organisational-related and less personal for women, and then provides a brief overview of real Indian corporate solutions, such as flexible career paths, eldercare services, and structured returnship programs, which human resource management can implement in order to retain experienced employees. This conceptual paper uses only secondary sources.

Batra, V. (2026). The Caregiving Penalty for Mid-Career Women: A Strategic Retention Challenge in Urban Indian Corporates. International Journal of Advanced Research in Commerce, Management & Social Science, 09(02(IV)), 145–152. https://doi.org/10.62823/IJARCMSS/9.2(IV).9187
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DOI:

Article DOI: 10.62823/IJARCMSS/9.2(IV).9187

DOI URL: https://doi.org/10.62823/IJARCMSS/9.2(IV).9187

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