From: pghol@ctp.com (Preeti Anissa Gholap)
Subject: Indian women in the Workplace India v/s USA
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 17:29:04 GMT
Organization: Cambridge Technology Partners
Followup-To: To Marry (Indian) or not?

My apologies if this got posted twice...

>In article <1992Oct2.224720.8216@athena.mit.edu>, nergis@athena.mit.edu (Nergis Mavalvala) writes:
>> 
>> (no, im not trying to claim that the U.S, or any country for that matter
>> is free of sexism and glass celings, just that a female boss would be 
>> more common here than in India where women managers are 
>> virtually non-existent)

gagrawal@cs.tamu.edu writes:
>In India, a very large number of proffs/lecturers in some of 
>the best universities (IITs) are women while here in US there 
>are very few (sorry, I don't have the numbers to back this up but this 
>was debated for some time on sci and numbers were provided then). I have 
>worked in 3 different firms and all of them had women managers at the very 
>top levels. In medical schools and several good Buisness management schools, 
>the women outnumber the men (the ratio is however still very pitiable in 
>Engg. colleges) and almost half the younger generation doctors in India 
>are now women. 

Indian women might be well represented in business colleges, but that
does not convince me that they are equally well represented in all
levels of the workforce and in all stages of education. 

Merely surveying the best (elite) universities such as IIT does 
not give an accurate picture of the state of women's education
in India today, just as looking at the fact that a handful
of Indian companies that have a woman as CEO or even a director,
does not imply that women are well represented in middle and
lower level management and administration. 

The bulk of Indian jobs (discounting agriculture)
are manufacturing, not service oriented. 
Whether its in steel mills or on auto manufacturing shop floors
or cloth production - its my impression that the prospects for
advancement and supervisory positions for women is dismal.

eg. At the main manufacturing plant of Bajaj Auto (a fairly
large co whose main Auto div. does motorcycle mfg)
outside Pune-- of 5000 mfg floor workers, 80% are women. 100% of floor 
supervisors are men. ALL of upper-level executive management
is male (surprise, surprise), with the exception of one woman 
who's job description is "social worker" - (Its unclear if
 she's on the payroll)
(I did an informal survey of other mfg co's in the Pune, 
Aurangabad area, and the numbers were pretty much similar)

Its only in the smaller number of service industry jobs 
(banking, hotels, advertising especially) that have a slightly
larger representation of women in any type of management
positions. I hear the percentages are even smaller for Pakistan. 

In contrast, I have observed, read studies about, and worked in, U.S.
companies where there are clearly more management opps. for
women than exist on the Indian subcontinent.
(If any one is interested in specific studies, a good place to
contact is the Stone Women's Research Centre at Wellesley College,
Wellesley MA 02181.) 

So, while clearly much needs to be done to raise the levels of
education and opportunity for women in BOTH countries (and places 
like Japan, the Middle East - well, the world)
lets not pull our "pallavs" over our eyes on this one  :)


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^ Preeti Anissa Gholap ^ CTP Inc. ^ 304 Vassar St. ^ Cambridge MA 02139 USA ^
^ pghol@ctp.com        ^          ^ (617)374-9800  ^                        ^
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Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian