Growing Livelihood Opportunities for Women (GLOW)

Growing Livelihood Opportunities for Women (GLOW) is a Proof of Concept (PoC) to influence industries and private companies to increase women’s employment, participation and fair treatment in the job market. Shifting the mindset of the employers by realizing the benefits of hiring and promoting women employees (e.g., brand differentiation, higher retention, increased revenue) is at the heart of the investment, along with changing the larger job ecosystem in favor of women. Based in India, it will design, test and scale sustainable female employment models. GLOW will use 3 levers: (1) Identify sectors with high-employment and high-growth potential, where women have a competitive advantage. (2) Increase female employment: Work with 6-10 companies (referred to as ‘partners’ in this investment memo) to increase employment of women and catalyze adoption of this by more companies in these sectors. These sustainable models would potentially hire 100,000+ women from low-income families in urban India in the project period. We expect an increase in the ratio of women employed by 6% in partners by improving hiring and retention of women through multiple actions (e.g., more progressive policies, women friendly work conditions, nurturing role models, etc.) (3) Secure wage parity: Reduce the gender pay gap by 50% and increase women managers by 8% in partners by helping them realize the benefits of women employees and investing in them.