Women Are Changing The Face Of Mining Industry

Underground shafts, night shifts, blasting operations, and heavy machinery were, by law and by custom, the domain of men. That picture is changing, and the shift has accelerated visibly over the last few years. Globally, women still hold a small share of leadership positions in metals and mining. According to the 2023 S&P Global Commodity Insights Report, women occupy just 12.1% of C-suite positions at publicly traded mining companies, with similarly low numbers on boards and in broader executive roles. But the business case is strengthening. McKinsey's research has found that the most diverse companies outperform less diverse peers by a wide margin in profitability, and other studies suggest gender-diverse organisations are 25% more likely to achieve above-average profitability. Regulation has been a major catalyst. Several mining jurisdictions, South Africa, Australia, Canada and, more recently, India, have introduced policies encouraging or mandating greater female participation, from board representation rules to leadership quotas. In India, the turning point came in 2019, when an amendment to the Mines Act lifted the long-standing ban on women working underground and on night shifts. That single regulatory change has reshaped careers across the sector. Consider Sandhya Rasakatla, who became India's first underground woman mine manager after the 2019 reforms. She described the experience as an opportunity to gain exposure to what no woman in Indian mining history got before and credited the opportunity with shaping her professional growth. Today, women are stepping into roles in mining that demand courage, resilience and specialised technical expertise. Nehal Solanki, mining engineer at Hindustan Zinc, represents this shift. Alongside her role in core mining operations, she is also part of India’s first all-women underground mine rescue team, introduced by Hindustan Zinc in 2023.The real-world impact of these regulatory reforms is clearly visible in the data of major Indian producers. In the private sector, Hindustan Zinc Limited has structured its workplace to support large-scale diversity, bringing female representation on its executive committee to 30% and across its total executive workforce to 26.4%. This change extends directly from corporate offices to high-risk operational environments. Following the lifting of night-shift restrictions for women, the company formed India’s first all-women underground mine rescue team in 2023. This initiative has since grown to three fully trained rescue teams. To maintain a steady pipeline of talent for these core engineering roles, the company relies on structured training frameworks like its Ignite leadership programme, which prepares women professionals for advanced engineering and extraction operations. Public-sector miners are following a similar path. At Coal India's Southeastern Coalfields, a Central Store Unit at Korba is now run entirely by women, led by senior manager Sauna Ikea, an IT (ISM) Dhanbad alumna, using a SAP-based digital logistics platform, a first for the company's operational hubs. A five-month leadership programme run by the Indian Institute of Coal Management is also preparing women executives for board-level roles, with curriculum focused on negotiation, emotional intelligence and technology-driven decision-making. This momentum is equally reflected at NMDC Limited, India's largest iron ore producer, which has systematically integrated women into heavy engineering and technical operations historically reserved for men. The public-sector enterprise achieved a major milestone by deploying its first batch of women mine operators to handle massive heavy earth moving machinery, including high-capacity dump trucks and shovels, at its flagship Bailadila iron ore mines in Chhattisgarh. Globally, the same forces are at play. Over the past decade, companies such as Vale, Nexa Resources, Anglo American and Mineração Rio do Norte have introduced policies, targets and workforce initiatives aimed at increasing female participation and advancing gender equity across mining operations and leadership roles. In Australia, BHP has increased female representation to more than 40% of its global workforce through targeted recruitment, greater operational flexibility and redesigned worksites, while expanding women's participation in autonomous haulage operations and engineering leadership roles. In South Africa, mining companies such as AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields and Impala Platinum have strengthened transparency around diversity and inclusion by publicly disclosing gender-related metrics through frameworks such as the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index.The significance of this shift extends beyond representation. Mining is entering a period of unprecedented demand for technical talent as countries race to secure critical minerals required for renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy storage and advanced manufacturing. Companies that once drew from only half the available talent pool can no longer afford that limitation. Expanding opportunities for women is increasingly becoming not only a matter of equity, but also a business imperative tied directly to productivity, innovation, safety and long-term competitiveness.What these examples ultimately demonstrate is that the old barriers were never about capability, only access. As regulatory restrictions fall and companies redesign workplaces to support more inclusive careers, women are moving into roles once considered out of reach, from underground operations and mine rescue teams to power plants, smelters and leadership positions. Mining's transformation from one of the world's most male-dominated industries into one actively competing for women's talent is no longer aspirational. It is underway, reshaping the future of the industry itself. (The views expressed are personal)This article is authored by Sandeep Sahu, assistant professor, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, IIT Mandi.