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Workplaces often describe themselves as neutral environments — places where opportunity is equal and policies apply uniformly. Yet health rarely unfolds in neutral ways. Beneath the language of fairness sits a quieter imbalance, one that shapes how women move through work long before any benefit is claimed or any policy is tested.
According to the Plum Employee Health Report 2025, seven in ten women are dissatisfied with their company’s healthcare plan. That dissatisfaction is not simply about coverage limits or hospital networks. It reflects something deeper — a growing awareness that many benefit structures were built around a default employee whose health journey does not mirror women’s lived realities.
To understand that gap, it helps to begin with the state of health itself.
Illness among working women in India no longer follows the slow, predictable arc that organisations often assume. Chronic conditions — particularly cancers and cardiovascular risks — are appearing earlier, compressing what should have been the most resilient years of adulthood. Data emerging from claims and broader datalabs patterns shows early breast cancer cases and hormone-linked disorders surfacing during peak career phases. Chronic health, once framed as a future problem, has quietly entered the present.
But chronic illness tells only part of the story. Acute health challenges — fatigue cycles, burnout, recurring infections — sit just beneath the threshold of diagnosis. These are the invisible strains that rarely justify extended leave yet shape everyday work. The State of Employee Benefits 2024 notes that most common workplace ailments in India — from gynecological conditions like PCOS to anemia and headache disorders — often do not require hospitalisation, which means they remain under-addressed despite affecting a large share of employees.
Health, however, is rarely singular. Physical, mental, and social wellbeing overlap in ways workplace systems still struggle to recognise.
Physically, women navigate hormonal shifts, reproductive health transitions, and chronic fatigue patterns that rarely appear in benefit design conversations. Mentally, the data reveals its own weight — one in five telehealth consultations by women relates to mental health, signalling not only rising awareness but accumulated emotional labour. And socially, the imbalance becomes even clearer. Women in India spend nearly ten times more hours on unpaid caregiving than men, shaping how recovery, rest, and preventive care are experienced.
When these dimensions intersect, health becomes less about isolated events and more about sustained pressure.
Yet workplace benefits continue to separate them — offering therapy without reproductive support, or insurance without acknowledging caregiving realities. The result is fragmentation. Support exists, but rarely aligns.
Policy often amplifies this gap.
Many organisations believe they are supporting women simply by offering equal benefits to everyone. Neutrality feels fair. But parity does not always translate into equity. Insights from the State of Employee Benefits 2024 suggest that maternity coverage — one of the most widely offered benefits — often lacks depth. While more companies now include maternity benefits, only a small fraction offer limits that reflect actual urban healthcare costs, and fewer still cover pre- and post-natal care comprehensively.
The report highlights that fewer than 40 percent of companies offer maternity limits above ₹75,000, despite rising delivery costs and the prevalence of complications during pregnancy. Coverage for surrogacy, infertility treatments, or miscarriage-related care remains rare, leaving many employees navigating deeply personal health journeys with minimal structural support.
Inclusive policies show similar gaps. While organisations increasingly speak about diversity, fewer than 15 percent build truly inclusive covers — such as support for gender affirmation procedures, autism-related care, or comprehensive mental health treatment.
These gaps do not exist because companies lack intention. They exist because benefits have historically evolved around compliance rather than lived experience.
The irony is that employers are investing more in health than ever before. Median sum insured levels have increased, and companies are expanding primary care initiatives. Many organisations now offer annual health checkups, discounted medicines, and telehealth access — a sign that the definition of healthcare is slowly expanding beyond hospitalisation.
But expansion alone does not guarantee relevance.
A benefits stack that truly supports women looks different from traditional designs. It recognises menstrual health not as an exception but as a routine reality. It acknowledges menopause as a career-stage transition rather than a private inconvenience. It integrates mental health with reproductive health instead of treating them as separate silos.
The top-performing organisations in India — the ones consistently attracting and retaining talent — have begun to move in this direction. According to SOEB insights, progressive benefit structures often include higher maternity limits, inclusive family definitions, mental health support, and employer-sponsored primary healthcare initiatives.
What sets these organisations apart is not the number of benefits they offer, but how those benefits connect. Preventive care sits alongside reproductive health. Mental health access exists without stigma. Flexible plans allow employees to choose coverage that reflects their stage of life rather than a one-size-fits-all template.
This integration matters because the gender gap in health is rarely caused by a single missing policy. It emerges from cumulative friction — small mismatches that compound over time.
When menstrual pain is treated as personal rather than legitimate, women hesitate to ask for flexibility. When menopause remains unspoken, mid-career professionals quietly manage symptoms that affect sleep and cognition. When maternity coverage ends at delivery, postpartum mental health remains invisible.
Lip service to wellness cannot resolve these gaps. A webinar or awareness campaign may signal intent, but without structural change, the experience remains unchanged.
What the data ultimately reveals is not a failure of policy, but a lag in imagination. Health is evolving faster than benefit design. Employees expect support that reflects their realities — not generic wellness frameworks borrowed from another era.
A healthy workplace is not one that treats everyone identically. It is one that understands difference without turning it into disadvantage.
Because when seven in ten women say their healthcare plans fall short, they are not asking for extravagance. They are asking for alignment — between policy and lived experience, between health as it is promised and health as it is actually lived.
Advocating for menstrual leave, menopause support, and integrated mental health care is not about adding more benefits. It is about building health plans that recognise the full spectrum of employee wellbeing — and designing workplaces where wellness moves beyond lip service.
