Creating Equitable Workplaces: Making Work Work for Women

Making Work Work for Women, Good Business Lab and 21st Century India Center, UCSD

On a sunny October morning at the University of California, San Diego, scholars and practitioners gathered to explore the intersection of gender and business. The event, co-hosted by UC San Diego's  21st Century India Center and Good Business Lab focused on answers to a critical question - how might we make work, work for women?

This conversation is particularly urgent in India, where, despite notable gains, women still face steep structural and cultural barriers to economic participation. The event explored practical, data-driven interventions that have the potential to shift workplace dynamics, blending empathy with evidence.

Shifting Norms: Flexible Work as a Gateway

Lisa Ho , postdoctoral associate at Yale University, shared powerful findings on how remote work can disrupt entrenched gender norms. For many women, working from home isn’t just an alternative—it’s a catalyst for change. “There’s a mismatch between the jobs available and what women can—or want—to do within existing societal expectations,” Ho explained. Remote work serves as a gateway, allowing women to enter the workforce in ways that align with their realities while subtly reshaping perceptions around gender roles.

Similarly, Suhani Jalota ’s research highlighted the transformative potential of digital work-from-home opportunities in urban India. Flexible jobs that accommodate safety concerns, childcare, and household responsibilities are key to unlocking workforce participation for women. However, the findings also underscored that change must go beyond workplace design—it must extend to reshaping household dynamics. In some cases, men were indifferent to job flexibility for themselves but actively resistant to their wives working from home. These insights highlight the importance of addressing societal constraints alongside organizational innovation.

Mobility and Safety: Overcoming Invisible Barriers

Mobility emerged as a critical enabler of workforce participation. Rolly Kapoor , from the University of California, Santa Cruz, shared insights on how simple interventions like providing safe transportation can remove one of the largest barriers for women looking to enter or stay in the workforce. Mobility, it turns out, isn’t just about transportation—it’s about creating freedom, enabling aspirations, and breaking down invisible walls.

Financial Stability as a Foundation

Financial stress is a pervasive challenge for low-income women, often limiting their ability to fully engage in work. Smit Gade from Good Business Lab presented research on earned wage access—a tool that allows workers to access a portion of their wages before payday. For many women, this intervention provides critical breathing room, reducing financial strain and enabling greater focus at work.

While the tool is simple, its impact is profound. By addressing a core stressor, businesses can foster greater loyalty and productivity among their workforce. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most effective solutions are those that meet workers where they are, addressing fundamental needs with empathy and precision.

Collaborative Design: A Win-Win for Business and Workers

Anant Nyshadham , associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and co-founder of Good Business Lab, underscored how collaborative, worker-focused design creates shared value. He highlighted Good Business Lab’s global footprint, which has already positively impacted over 2 million low-income workers, predominantly women.

“Our organization’s research, advocacy, and programs are all designed to create economic opportunities for low-income workers, especially women, and help them thrive,” Nyshadham said. “I’m proud to say that our work has already made tangible, measurable change.”

Nyshadham’s remarks served as a reminder that these interventions are not abstract experiments but actionable solutions delivering real results in real lives. Events like this, he emphasized, are about scaling what works and refining what doesn’t.

The Business Case for Inclusion

For companies, the benefits of inclusive practices extend beyond compliance or goodwill. Participatory HR systems, safe and effective grievance mechanisms, and flexible workplace designs drive tangible outcomes: higher retention, greater loyalty, and improved safety. As Achyuta Adhvaryu , director of the 21st Century India Center and co-founder of Good Business Lab, put it, “When women are left out of economic opportunity, it’s not just their loss—it’s a loss for businesses, governments, and society as a whole.”

Two panel discussions during the event underscored this point, further shedding light on the practical and strategic advantages of inclusive workplaces, especially for women in emerging sectors like the gig economy and formal industries.

The first panel, Unlocking Potential for Women in the Gig Economy, moderated by Anant Nyshadham, focused on the potential for inclusive research to reshape labor markets. Panelists Todd Greene , Shelly Steward, and Karthik Murali, PhD explored how traditional labor data often excludes younger, racially diverse workers, a gap that inclusive initiatives like The Workers Lab aim to address. The conversation delved into the real-world needs of gig workers, highlighting issues like wage instability, lack of access to benefits, and the need for flexible work schedules. Programs like WorkRise’s Worker Schedule Control initiative at Ikea were showcased as examples of how flexible scheduling can improve the economic security and mobility of gig workers, demonstrating the need for businesses to adopt policies that support worker wellbeing and stability. 

The second panel, Implementation Lessons: How to Navigate On-Ground Realities within Firms, moderated by Lisa Patel, Ph.D. , focused on the challenges and strategies for integrating research and action within businesses. Panelists from Good Business Lab, Arvind Patil , Varun Jagannath , and Mansi Kabra —discussed how field-based insights and co-design frameworks can guide businesses in crafting solutions that account for the cultural and social realities of their workforce. Crucially, the panel highlighted how research needs to be actionable, offering ROI-focused narratives and impact-driven stories to help businesses truly understand the direct benefits of inclusive practices. 

The Ideation Session, led by Arvind Patil, took this concept a step further by inviting participants to generate ideas on how personal stories and lived experiences could shape research agendas. Participants collaborated to uncover research gaps and design human-centered solutions to systemic challenges. The session reinforced the idea that empathy-driven research can lead to innovations that resonate deeply with workers and businesses alike. 

A Call for Action and Collaboration

As the day drew to a close, one truth stood out: The solutions to making work work for women are within grasp, waiting for the right mix of intent and action. The question is no longer why it matters but how businesses, researchers, and policymakers can collaboratively drive this transformation.

For businesses ready to embrace this journey, the opportunities are extraordinary: to build workplaces that are more equitable, dignified, and humane, and thus, more profitable. As the research shows, making work work for women benefits everyone—not just workers but also the firms that employ them.

If you’re a business leader, policymaker, or researcher ready to drive meaningful change, let’s collaborate to create workplaces where women thrive. Together, we can ensure work truly works—for everyone.