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An official United States report said nearly three out of every H-1B visa holders as of October 5 are Indian citizens.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there were as many as 419,637 foreign nationals working in the U.S. on H-1B visas as on October 5.
Of these, 309,986 are Indians, the USCIS said in its report 'H-1B petitions by gender and country of the birth fiscal year 2018'.
The report unveils a massive gender inequality - only one out of every four H-1B visa holders is female. Of the 419,637 H1B visa holders, 106,096 (or 25.3 percent) are females as against 311,997 (or 74.3 percent males), it said.
Gender inequality is wider among Indians.
Of the 309,986 Indians on H-1B visas in the U.S. this October, only 63,220 or 20.4 percent are females while nearly 245,517 Indians on H-1B visas or 80 percent (79.2 percent to be precise) are males. As many as 1,249 Indians on H1B visas have been characterized in the category of missing/others.
Indians, who account for 73.9 percent of the total H-1B visa holders in the U.S., are followed by a distant Chinese with 47,172 on H-1B visas, accounting for 11.2 percent of the total foreign nationals on this work visas.
Nevertheless, there is not much gender inequality among the Chinese on H-1B visas. According to the report, 21,342 or 45.2 percent are females and 25,718 or 54.5 percent are males.
Followed by India and China, Canada and South Korea are the only two countries which account for a little over one percent (1.1 percent to be exact) each on H-1B visas.
After that, all other countries constitute less than one percent of the H1B visas as of October 5.
The Philippines is the sole country in top 10 H-1B visa holders in which there are more females (1712 or 52.7 percent) on H-1B visas than males (1519 or 46.7 percent) on H-1B visas.
As of October 5, as many as 3,250 professionals from the Philippines were on H-1B visas.
The H-1B gender report was revealed days after the Trump administration came out with its incorporated fall agenda, in which it said that it plans to make changes in the definition of specialty occupation for the definition of H-1B visas and re-redefining the relationship between employees and employers.
The proposed regulations, it said, is aimed at attracting the best and the brightest from across the world, prevent the abuse of H-1B visas which is consentient with the hire American agenda of the Trump administration.
The USCIS is also proposing to introduce a pre-registration system for foreign students in the U.S.
Technically it is possible that if 85,000 such students succeed in getting H-1B visas, no overseas applicants could apply.
-Sowmya Sangam