The Indian software industry finds in its ranks, one of the most talented and smartest women that the country has to offer. However, the climb for all such women is arduous with severe sacrifices involved in the path. More often than not, they find themselves in positions of frustration given the social conservatism that encompasses the business world and the society at large
Introduction: The Indian society is a patriarchal society with clear set of rules defined for the roles that men and women have to play. Men have been the bread winners while the onus of the well being of the family lies with the women. This was the status quo, until the last phase of the 20th century where women, seriously, started challenging men in their positions of power. Its not been an easy ride for even their western counterparts either. Debora Spar in her article "When Mommy track leads to a dead end" highlights the concerns of the career track known as "the career secondary" or the mommy track for women[1]. As she points for women returning after a prolonged leave due to maternity or family issues, "Positions disappear; salaries plummet; professional relationships grow stale. And at the end of the day, only 40 percent of women who try to return to full-time professional jobs actually manage to do so. The rest settle into early retirement, or slower paced, lower-ranked jobs." The "career primary" women,however, behaved like men and were most likely remain single or childless. The onus of success in the business world lies with these women.
Coming back home, in a landmark study of its kind ,Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan from IIIM Bangalore pointed out the talent concerns of women employed in the Indian IT Industry in her work "THE LEAKY BUCKET OF FEMALE TALENT IN THE INDIAN IT INDUSTRY" along with her student Monisha Nakra. In this work, she argues over three factors that define career persistence for Indian women:
a) Self: the need of a career, marriage & motherhood importance
b)Social: Role models, Family support, Marriage pressure and work-family conflict
c) Structural: Mentors at workplace,child care, networking and stigmas
The study agreed to what Debora Spar had already concluded. The Indians and their Western counterparts shared the same view on career tracks for women.
The study, however, points no guidelines to men. Often in workplaces, women in marriages or with children are frowned upon to take challenging roles. Also, marriage & children make it impossible for women to work in shifts. Long leaves of maternity add to the difficulties in acceptance for challenging roles. Family concerns like change of job location of husband add to the woes. Some of the brilliant women I have encountered had their careers wither away because of this one reason.With respect to children, behind doors, women have told me of the following rules:
a) Rule of one: Avoid taking challenging roles
b) Rule of two: End of career
Putting a child into creches is a stigma in Indian society for which thee women sacrifice their career. As seen, the juggling act of family and career exhausts all the reserve of Indian women making it difficult for them to achieve their talent potentials.
Solution: There is a dire need to address this leaky bucket. Much of the onus has to fall on the family and the men involved in the women's life. There needs to be a new vocabulary needed by men to endear them to this cause.Men should or make provisions for :
a) Minimum break in a women's career due to family issues/maternity
b) Sabbatical for child care for a period of time
c) Help in day to day running of the family
d) Respect the option if the woman does not want to have children
Women should realize that they have a 40% chance of being where they were after a career break. Hence, they in turn, need to identify these breaks very early. In certain cases, its not possible and they need to sacrifice their career, they should counsel/get counseled on such issues. These periods could be used to re-skill themselves. Workplaces should, in turn, provide child care facilities in their vicinity. This is, in my opinion, easier said than done. However, the attempts need to be made by larger companies first. Picking up challenging roles in early part of life is also a good option. The labour laws have been refined for the IT/ITES sector. These should be taken into account while planning.
The contribution of women in a fast growing country like India has been fractional in terms of roles in the industry. The eminent scientist, Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, has opined as a "women centric" society as one of the pillars for the development of Indian society[3]. The vision can be bought to its fruition only if juggling act stops and women are able to give serious justice to the talents they possess.
References:
[1] Debora Spar, http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/09/27/debora-spar-s-wonder-women-career-on-ramps-off-ramps-u-turns-and-dead-ends.html
[2] Vasanthi Srinivisan and M. Nakra," The Leaky Bucket of Female Talent in the Indian IT Industry". http://tejas.iimb.ac.in/articles/90.php.
[3] R. Mashelkar,"Reinventing India", pp.26.
The image is taken from the article, "http://maryandmoney.com/lifestyle/the-juggling-act/". for educational purposes only.
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