The demographics of the members in a coworking space have been drastically changing over the passage of time. Initially a decade ago, we witnessed the majority of the coworkers belonged to the IT and technology industry. Now, in the present times, we see that the coworking spaces are being rapidly flooded with professionals from across various industries and are not merely restricted to the IT companies and startups.

One of the interesting findings of the Global Coworking Survey is that the number of female coworking members in India is witnessing a steep rise in the year 2018. We had noticed in the previous years that the female coworking members were on a lesser side in India. But the trend has changed significantly by mid of 2018. This is one very consistent trend which has been very obvious in all the major coworking surveys. The rising share of the female members is being witnessed across the coworking spaces in all the cities in India and the female share of coworking at present times is estimated to be 40%. While looking at the participants in most of the coworking surveys, the average percentage of the women taking the surveys in the coworking spaces is recorded to be 44%.

The rapid growth in the number of employees operating from the coworking spaces in the last few years has resulted in a rapid development of the coworking spaces in India. Among the increasing number of the professionals adopting coworking in India, women used to hold a very small majority. However, 2018’s coworking surveys have revealed that women freelancers constitute 46% of the entire lot. However, the only group where the ratio of women is recorded to be below average is the employers with staffs. Here the percentage of females is just 24%.

The share of females is recorded to be lower for those with kids

The coworking surveys tell the same story that the majority of the females are still hesitant to adopt coworking. Once the Indian women marry; the share of the female coworking members’ drops, especially in the age bracket of 30 to 50 years. The major reason for this is the responsibility of childcare. While this is true that the many Indian women are able to very well manage and combine their personal & professional lives after they have their first child and often continue to use coworking spaces again after few months of giving birth, this is also being observed that the number of the female members in the coworking spaces dips rapidly again once the women are pregnant for the second time. This is possible that this particular development happens because the women during their second pregnancy want to save the travel time and energy. Most of the women, if they are employees, have a considerably longer travel time as compared to their male counterparts. So, this makes a lot of sense to them to avoid the stress of travelling during their pregnancy and opt to work from home during this phase.

All the major coworking surveys have strongly revealed that the preference of coworking spaces amongst the women is significantly growing and the trend is not easily going to fade away in near future. More and more women are now realizing the opportunities and advantages attached to a coworking space and they are not being hesitant to adopt these new and contemporary workspaces anymore.