None would be surprised to hear that the world we live in is stacked against its lesser privileged sex. Corridors of the corporate, supposed to be adorned by learned men and women, too is not free from this age-old gender imbalance. The recent ‘Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia-2011’ survey only confirms this with some concrete statistics. In spite of having made great strides over time in reducing the gender gap in many areas, the odds still continue to be heavily against women in the scheme of things of our corporate world.
As per the data compiled by the GDBA survey, India ranks as the worst performer among the Asian countries in terms of the participation of women in the labor force as well as in terms of their career advancement. The GDBA report examines the representation of women in junior, middle and senior levels at the selected Multinational companies in six countries across Asia.
Country | Junior | Middle | Senior | The Leaking Pipeline | |
Percentage change from Junior to Middle | Percentage change from Junior to Middle | ||||
China | 55.41 | 43.97 | 20.72 | -20.65 | -52.88 |
Hong Kong | 51.62 | 44.5 | 22.77 | -13.79 | -48.83 |
India | 28.71 | 14.91 | 9.32 | -48.07 | -37.49 |
Japan | 45.37 | 26.11 | 7.77 | -42.45 | -70.24 |
Malaysia | 53.17 | 41.08 | 27.57 | -22.74 | -32.89 |
Singapore | 54.19 | 39.74 | 21.5 | -26.67 | -45.90 |
Average | 48.08 | 35.05 | 18.28 | 29.06 | -48.04 |
Table: Women in workforce and leakage pipeline
(Source: Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia – 2011)
(Source: Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia – 2011)
In India, as per the survey, the women strength in the labor force stands at 28.7% at the junior level, 14.91% at the middle level and 9.32% at the senior level in the corporate. Apart from being the lowest in the list for overall women participation in the workforce, India ranks at the top in the drop-out rate as well. A significant ‘Leaking Pipeline’ shows that the Indian women drop out of the workforce much early in their career compared to their counterparts in the other Asian countries. India is once again the worst performer in this regard with 48% of women dropping out between the junior level and middle level. i.e. almost half the women entering the workforce end their career even before they get to the middle tier of the corporate ladder. With an already diminished flow to the middle level, the situation worsens with 37.49% dropping out at the middle level before they go to the senior level in the hierarchy. Such a high drop-out rate explains why very few women are represented at the top of the corporate hierarchy. A recent survey on women presence in the top echelons of the corporate world indicates that out of 6560 individuals occupying the directorship positions in 1069 listed companies, only 311 are women. Globally, women account for only around 10% senior managers in the fortune 500 companies and their presence in executive management role being very minimal.
The primary reasons often mentioned for the high drop-out rate has been the child care and the family responsibilities, including the elder care. With the society still being organized largely along the male-dominated, patriarchal model and associated values, the role of the women is still perceived to be primarily looking after the husband, children and the elders and taking care of the well-being of the family. Women often succumb to the ‘daughterly guilt’ where they take upon themselves the responsibility for the eldercare in the family and thus forced to push their career behind as ‘secondary’. The pressure of dual role on working women is considerable. Many women in the IT industry often point out to the contradiction, where the husbands expecting their wives back home early in the evening to take care of her ‘homely’ responsibilities are most often the same men, who as managers ask their women staff to stay back late at work. The latest report released by the global research firm Nielsen on ‘Women of Tomorrow’, reveals a worrisome picture on the stress level of women employees in India. The survey that examined working women from twenty one developed and developing countries, India tops the list with 87% of the Indian women responding that they many times feel stressed and overworked.
The personal sacrifice and the cost for even the limited success have been significant for women. It was quite revealing that none of the twenty four women at the top positions who were interviewed for GDBS survey had children. Women, even to achieve much lesser success in terms of advancement in the corporate ladder, often have to incur higher personal cost like forgoing motherhood or even marriage.
The three key factors that play important role in enabling women are Property, Education and Employment. Change of role from being a ‘receiver’ to that of a ‘provider’ enhances the decision making role of the women in the family. Thus the Industry obviously has a critical role in reducing the gender gap in our society. It has helped the cause by creating opportunities for women to join the workforce, though driven by the need of the market forces to ‘empower’ the ‘other’ half of the population as well, with higher purchasing power. However, there is still a long way to go for the corporate before it can claim of better gender-mix in the workforce and a work environment that is free of gender discrimination.
Currently the women participation in waged employment is very low. Total percentage of women engaged in non-agriculture waged employment nationwide is a mere 17%. Total women participation stands at 13.9% in urban and 29.9% in the rural areas, indicating a smaller rate of migration of women to urban areas seeking work. However, the IT industry and other service sectors like banking etc have played a key role in encouraging the migration of women to the urban areas. The Indian IT industry, as a sector that employs over 30% of women, continues to play a big role in enabling the new generation of the traditionally lesser privileged gender. However, the prevailing question is, whether the Indian IT industry is doing enough to create conducive work environment where women can aspire to advance their career in the same way as their male peers. The regressive mindset at the workplace, which is of course a reflection of the attitude and values prevalent in the larger society outside, make the contributions from women employees viewed as below par compared to that from their male colleagues. The corporate policies, where number of hours spent is considered as the measure of performance than the result, add to women’s work stress and negatively influences their performance ratings. These policies do not factor in the needs to spend extra time at home during the special phases like childbirth, eldercare or for discharging ‘duties’ that the society has imposed on women as their ‘natural’ role.
Though the employment has helped women to achieve financial independence to certain level, this new found independence has not gone well with the men. The conflict between men’s desire to have educated and earning wives versus their inability to still accept the ‘independent’ woman create ripples in the families. Though men prefer working, earning wives, they still want to reserve the rights to set boundaries for their wives. The freedom and independence women come to enjoy by virtue of the job are either not acceptable to the men or they are forced to accept with a grudge. This ‘tension’ in the families more often than not forces women to give up their careers at a very early stage.
The Indian business organizations are still male fiefdoms and the women continue to struggle to break the glass ceilings that keep them away from the boardrooms and the top management tiers. It is in the interest of everyone who strives for a healthy corporate culture that those glass ceilings are broken. However, such a change in the status quo demands conscious and comprehensive actions from the industry.
