Men are more clinically represented in anxiety and depression than women: Inside India Inc.’s Mental Wellness Reckoning Report by ekincare
ekincare, India’s leading digital health benefits platform, today released a report titled From Silence to Signal: India Inc.’s Mental Wellness Reckoning (2023–2026), a data-led analysis of corporate mental health utilization trends drawn from its counselling sessions ledger across its corporate client base. The findings, based on data from across 6,000 counselling sessions booked between 2023 and 2026, reveal that mental wellness utilization across India Inc. has grown 44% since 2023, pointing to a major behavioral shift in how employees engage with workplace mental healthcare.
Key Findings: A Workforce Learning to Name What Hurts
• Workplace mental health demand is no longer niche: counselling sessions across India Inc. have grown 44% since 2023, indicating that workplace mental health support is evolving from an underused employee benefit into a mainstream care channel.
• Gen Z is normalizing therapy at work: employees aged 20-25 recorded 203% growth in counselling utilization over two years, far outpacing the 31-35 age group, which grew just 18%, suggesting a clear generational shift in comfort with seeking mental health support.
• High-pressure industries are leading the mental health surge: counselling utilisation surged 408% in BFSI, the highest among industries studied, followed by Healthcare & Pharma at 122%, highlighting rising demand in high-pressure sectors.
• The “Articulation Gap” is changing how distress appears in workplace data: while men are more clinically represented in anxiety and depression than women (38% vs 32%), they often describe their struggles using broader or less direct language, potentially masking underlying mental health concerns.
• Asking for help doesn’t always translate into receiving it: 26.6% of employees who book a counselling session never attend one, revealing a critical drop-off between seeking help and accessing support.
• The oldest workforce cohort is showing the most clinical need: Among employees aged 35+, 44% of counselling sessions relate to anxiety, depression, or mood concerns.
Commenting on the findings, Dr Noel Coutinho & Co-founder of ekincare, said; “The conversation around workplace mental health has fundamentally changed. A few years ago, the question was: how do we get employees to use these programmes? Today, usage is no longer a challenge. The challenge is readiness. Are our systems equipped for the scale, complexity, and clinical depth of the demand that is emerging? Because when one in four employees finds the courage to book a session and still doesn’t show up, the issue is not awarenes, it’s psychological safety. Corporate healthcare is no longer a peripheral benefits conversation. It is becoming one of the defining infrastructures through which Indian adults’ access mental healthcare.”
The findings suggest that corporate mental health in India is no longer a story about awareness or programme adoption alone. The deeper shift lies in who is seeking help, how distress is being expressed, and what kind of care employees increasingly need.
Younger employees are normalising therapy at work, high-pressure sectors are driving demand, and workplace counselling is moving steadily into more clinical territory. At the same time, the data points to unresolved gaps; from the 26.6% of employees who book support but never attend, to the differences in how men and women articulate distress, to the growing need for sustained rather than episodic care.
As the corporate channel becomes an increasingly important gateway to mental healthcare access in India, the report argues that the next generation of workplace mental health systems will need to be designed not just for utilization, but for psychological safety, trust, and care pathways that reflect the realities of different life stages and levels of need.
