Women haven’t been given equal opportunities.” In earlier days in India, where, on one hand, boys were encouraged to pursue higher studies, girls, on the other hand, were relegated to domestic household work so that they can be married off.
Illustration: Chaitanya Dinesh Surpur
As the world was entering a new millennium in 2000, only 11 women worldwide, a miniscule number, were a part of the billionaires club, as per Forbes. Today, that number has increased to 327, but it’s still a mere 12.25 percent of the total 2,668 billionaires on the planet.
Bring India into this statistic, and it’s far worse. Let’s analyse a 10-year time period for Forbes India’s list of 100 Richest Indians, beginning 2013. Since then, the number of women who have featured on the list has only gone up slightly. In fact, if we just consider the self-made women billionaires, in 2013, there were five women on the list, and this year the number remains the same. (excluding families). Nine female billionaires compared to 91 men.
(This story appears in the 15 December, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)