EY employee Anna Sebastian death: Young Indian women work 55 hours/week, highest globally

The death of 26-year-old Chartered Accountant Anna Sebastian Perayil while working with Ernst & Young (EY) in Pune has now been raising an all-India debate about the kind of pressure and workload under which young Indian professionals, especially women, are burdened.

Anna's mother Anita Augustine had cited "work stress" as the primary cause behind her daughter's untimely death, according to a letter written by her to EY Chairman Rajiv Memani. She recounted the long hours, night shifts, and deadlines-all under a broader condition within the corporate landscape.

Anna's tragic story falls within the larger pressure that professional women bear upon themselves in India. The conversation comes at a time when there have been heightened concerns about the prevalent corporate cultures demanding high working hours without an appropriate support system in place, particularly for women in male-dominated industries like finance, technology, and engineering.

India's women longest working hours in professional jobs

According to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), overtime work is done by Indian women the most in the professional, scientific, and technical field all over the world. For example, while working in IT, communication, or media sectors, the average woman puts in 56.5 hours a week-that means more than 11 hours a day for the standard five-day workweek. Even female scientific and technical employees work on average 53.2 hours a week, which is again very much higher than the world average of 40 hours per week, European Union's Eurostat data says.

The biggest burden of work, though, is on younger women in India. The ILO report states that IT and media women clock in 57 hours a week, and scientific and technical women work for 55 hours a week. That is much more than a worker in France or Sweden, where women in those jobs average about 35 hours a week, as per OECD Labour Market Statistics.

Global Perspectives: Variations in Work Hours

Working hours vary significantly compared to the rest of the world. For example, in Australia, women who work in professional sectors, like IT and communication, put in approximately 38 hours a week according to Australia's Bureau of Statistics. In Japan, a country known for overwork, women working in the same professions work an average of 42 hours a week, according to data from the country's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

In Brazil, the work hours per week put in by working women employed in the professional and technical industries are approximately 44 hours, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Work hours put in by women working in technical occupations are reported to be an average of 36 hours a week by Statistics Canada.

International comparisons indicate that the Indian youth professional workforce is ridiculously working far beyond global norms.

Gender Gap and Work Stress

Even though the workloads are heavy, the proportions of gender representation in the Indian workplaces remain low. For India, only 8.5 per cent of professional, scientific and technical roles are represented by women; 20 per cent in information and communication. These figures come far too below average global figures; whereas female participation in technical fields in Norway, Finland, and Denmark exceeds 40 per cent, quoted from the World Bank.

This gap further threatens the female work force of Indian organizations where, as mentioned earlier, they are a minority and face structural disadvantage in the male-superior-centric cultures of most organizations. The scarcity of women at the workplaces builds up the burden of stress in the workspace as women have to prove their worth perpetually in such a high-pressure context.

Corporate India under scanner

The death of Anna Sebastian Perayil has highlighted the psychological and physical costs of corporate pressures in India, where every sector calls for reforms across this country. EY also came under attack for its response to this incident, as many were crying over the fact that accountability among Indian corporations is non-existent. They grieved over the fact that no company representative was present at Anna's funeral.

It coincides with a period of increasing urgency about workplace mental health and well-being in India's corporate sector. In response to the public outcry, EY India Chairman Rajiv Memani said, “the well-being of our people is my top-most priority.”

The incident has catalysed urgent conversations on corporate responsibility, employee welfare, and the need for workplace reforms in India. Regulatory changes are being called for - to cap working hours, enhance mental health support, and just have a better work-life balance for young professionals. Countries like France have successfully limited the "right to disconnect," allowing employees to disengage from work after hours, and such a policy is increasingly being discussed for India as well.