Why The Participation Of Women Surging In All Industries, Except Tech Domain

Women representation has always been a hot topic in the business industries. With the evolving time, issues like gender disparity, income gap and glass-ceiling have been eradicated by tremendously performing women leaders. Gita Gopinath, being the first woman serving as the Chief Economist at International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, designating as the Chief Economist at World Bank are some exemplary figures to falsify the term “Glass Ceiling”.

Similarly, women professionals are encroaching into the other spheres of life which were not earlier accessible to them. Soldier, Politician, Lawyer and Chauffeur are some of the vocations wherein women participation rate was counted as a negligible number. After several feminist movements and contemporary judicial regulations, the women participation rate has steadily incremented in the evolving business ecosystem.

Women Participation In The Indian Industries

According to Catalyst, a research company, “Women are closing the higher education gap by 27 per cent women getting enrolled in tertiary education.” The increasing intake of female students in the Indian schools has not borne good results in the terms of employment as the labour force participation rate for women is the lowest in India, in accord with Catalyst’s research report.

“Despite educational gains, the labour force participation rate for women in 2017 was 28.5 per cent.” states the research report.

The limelight has been timely thrown upon the sinking rate of women participation which, in turn, has begotten positive results in today’s work front. However, there are fewer sectors where women grapple for recognition and thus, could not climb up the ladder in order to become a C-suite employee. Unfortunately, the IT sector is one of the sectors where women participation rate keeps staggering.

Women Professionals In IT Sector

In the tech and engineering companies, a promising relationship is sought from the employees. The young female professionals mostly fail to work in the companies, owing to their family responsibilities post-marriage.

“IT companies in India face a significant problem of retention following maternity leave, and are concerned about the levels of women not returning to work.” states the research report of NASSCOM.

Once the women professionals get married and have children, it becomes difficult to rear children along with professional duties. As a result, the female in a married duo decisively quits the job and looks after the children and further, fulfil family responsibilities.

As a result, women professionals are seemed to have junior positions in the tech companies and thus, rarely climbs up to the senior position.

“Women are concentrated at lower career levels and there are fewer women in top positions in IT companies in India,” states NASSCOM’s research report.

The reports on the women participation rate in India beget imploring needs to reduce gender disparity and escalate numbers of women labour workforce.

Helping hands to raise women participation in the business industry

Besides the rallies on women education and reducing gender disparity, there are various steps that have been taken to uphold female working professionals in the work front.

• A mandate to have a woman director on a board

According to the Companies Act of 2013, a certain set of companies to have at least one woman director on board. SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India), later, conformed to the Companies Act 2013 and thus, made it compulsory for listed companies to have a woman director from October 2014 onwards.       

This mandate has created positive results in the companies and also decreased gender disparity.

“It has been a valuable intervention to accelerate the process as demonstrated by an increase in women directors on Boards,” said Arun Duggal, chairman at ICRA, to the Indian daily news, The Economic Times.

• Government-run crèches for working women

The female working professionals who belong from mediocre families cannot afford to send their children to crèches while they are working in the companies. By keeping in consideration the needs of working professionals, the government has initiated crèches in 2012 under Rajiv Gandhi National Crèche Scheme. The scheme was refurbished in 2016 through the intervention of NGO.

• Mahila E-Haat

Mahila E-Haat is an initiative of the government to meet the needs of the women entrepreneurs. This plan was launched by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It renders a direct marketing niche for women entrepreneurs.

The aforementioned plans facilitate empowering female professionals and encourage women to become active participators in trade.