Women in Science: the case ofIndia• incongruities and oppositions during the historical aswell as the contemporary period.
• various superstitions, such as widowhood would surely
follow if girls touched books prevailed• Woman as a category constitute a deprived anddiscriminated section - are placed lower to men• women exist primarily to serve as wives and mothers is widely assumed and a strong cultural tradition

11.Gender differentiation: Gender differentiation is the extent to which a society maximises gender role differences. India and China are reported to have high degrees of genderdifferentiation. They tend to accord men higher social status and have relatively few women in positions of authority. Table 3 shows the country's rankings on this dimension.

TABLE 3

Country Rankings on Gender Differentiation

Most Gender Differentiation Countries In GLOBE

Medium Gender Differentiation Countries In GLOBE

Least Gender Differentiation Countries In GLOBESouth Korea

2.50

Italy

3.24

Sweden

3.84

Egypt

2.81

Brazil3.31

Denmark

3.93

Morocco2.84

Argentina

3.49

Slovenia

3.96

India

2.90

Netherlands

3.50

Poland4.02

China

3.05

Venezuela

3.62

Hungary

4.08

Source: Cultural Acumen for the Global Manager cited
at http://www.larsentoubro.com/students_portal/news02.asp

some recent trends and shifts ineducation• An important finding of the 2001 census count is that morethan half of the females are now literate and male-female
differential has narrowed down to 21.7 percent from 24.8
percent in 1991.
• India has marked an upward trend from 10.5 percent women
professors in 1997 to 18.0 percent women professors in2000(Association of Commonwealth Universities, 2002)

2Female Literacy in India(1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001)(P ercentage)
YearRuralUrban

Overall

1961*

10.1

40.5

15.35

1971*

15.5

48.8

21.97

1981**

21.7

56.3

29.76

1991**

30.6

64

39.29

2001**

46.7

73.2

54.16

Note : * : Relates to population 5 years and above.
** : Relates to population 7 years and above.
Source : Statistical Database for Literacy - Vol.2, 1993, National Institute of Adult
Education & Rural Development Statistics 2002-03, National Instituteof Rural Development, Govt. of India.

Enrolment of Girls as per cent of Total Enrolment inUniversity Education by FacultyYearArtsScience

Commerce

Education

Engg./Tech.

Medicine@

1960-61

18.6

__

1.1

32.5

0.8

20.4

1970-71

33.5

18.5

2.8

37.3

1.0

21.3

1980-81

37.5

27.9

15.2

46.7

4.6

23.8

1990-91

39.8

36.8

24.0

44.2*

10.9*

34.3*

1997-98

41.5

35.6

30.6

43.1*

16.9*

36.1*

Arts and Science figures are combined for the year 1960-61@ Excludes dentistry, public health, nuring, midwifery and pharmacy.
* Only for Degree Level, not Post-Graduate.

Source: Minsitry of Human Resource Development

3Enrolment of Girls in Higher Education (General) by Faculty and Level

Doctorate/Research

Postgraduation

Graduation

Faculty
1971

1981

1991

1998

1971

1981

1991

1971

1981

1998

Arts

Total

1998

615393(54.01)

1154970(59.89)2461*(99.88)4809(63.51)

@

@

30791
(78.60)58763(75.77)76896(66.12)123722(65.49)255753(72.19)382291(63.33)**2613(34.51)@@8093(20.66)15554(20.05)24349(20.94)44012(23.29)92019(25.98)136353(22.59)281035(24.67)403691(20.93)3(0.12)150(1.98)

@

@

292
(0.74)

3241(4.18)

15043(12.94)21192(11.22)6492(18.33)84994(14.08)242936(21.32)369911(19.18))9598(100.00)

7572(100.00)

9129(100.00)

11729(100.00)

39176(100.00)

77558(100.00)

116288(100.00)

188926(100.00)

354264(100.00)

603648(100.00)

1139364(100.00)

1928572(100.00)

Science

Commerce

1991+ Figures relate to 1989-90* Includes enrolment in Science.

Level of Qualification of Women Research andDevelopment Personnel by Sector in India(1988, 1992, 1996)
Institutional

IndustrialSector

Sector

Total

1988

1992

1996

1988

19921996

1988

1992

1996

Ph. D.

586

1042

2165

78

218

241

664

1260

2406

Post-Graduate

1335

2293

2044

392

818

7171

1727

3111

2761

Graduate

544

1104

807

683

1101

821

1227

2205

1628

Diploma Holder

243

445

453*

142

286

303*

385

731

756*

645

179

-

245

251

-

890

430

-

1540 2674 2082 4893 7737

7551

Qualification

OthersTotal3353 5063 5469

Note : As on 1st April.
Excluding Higher Education Sector.
* Include 'others' also
Source : India Yearbook 2002, Manpower Profile.
Year: Period of fiscal year in India is April to March, e.g. year shown as 1990-91relates toApril 1990 to March 1991.

4literature review• The literature on women in science in India is rathersparse. one of the earliest study in Indian context is byKrishnaraj, 1978
• Chakravarthy (1986) found that despite many barriersand discrimination practices, the productivity ofwomen scientists is only marginally lower than that ofmen scientists, and in certain areas their productivity ismore than that of men.
• Krishnaraj (1991) found organizational hurdles tooutweigh family constraints• Jaiswal (1993) noticed unequal treatment and subtle
discrimination in the behavioural and interpersonal
relations apart from the other organizational
discrimination.
• Subrahmanyan (1998) noticed overt unequal gender
relations in the workplace (besides subtle
discrimination) reflecting the patriarchal views of malecolleagues and subordinates. She has remarked thatthe question of women in science in India stands out
because of almost complete lack of empirical research
specifically on women scientists

5• Duraisamy and Duraisamy (1998) observed higher
discrimination component in scientific and technicalfields than the social sciences.
• Gupta and Sharma (2002) found prevailing socio-culturalsystems to have significant consequences - gender relateddifficulties at work - for the career of women academicscientists.
• Parikh and Sukhatme (2004) found unsatisfactory work
opportunities and environment to be the most frequentlyperceived factor by women engineers to affect their career.

my empirical study• Using questionnaire a sample, of 490 scientists inassistant professors or higher rank, was collected ineight scientific institutions - four each fromuniversities and national laboratories - situated in fourdifferent Indian cities.
• number of women scientists was quite a low - out of490 scientists only 56 were women, which constitutes
just 18% of the entire sample

6

academic rank
1 Asst.Prof.

male

2
3Asso.Prof.
Professor

2

genderPies show counts

female 1

Only 3.6 % of the women are professors, whereas 60.7 percent are assistant professors. In contrast 18%
male scientists are in professorial rank and 44.3% are assistant professors. At the associate professor level,
the difference between the two groups is smaller - 35.7% female scientists and 37.7 % of the malescientists. Skewed distribution of female-male scientists in terms of hierarchical positions are seenelsewhere too

Comparison of women and men on various research activities, performance and socio- demographic variables
WomenMenN

Mean

SD

N

Mean

SDtp

Academic Rank

56

1.35

.61

61

1.73

.75

2.98.003

Social-classbackground

56

8.53

3.67

61

6.16

2.64

4.03.000

Rural- urban origin

56

1.85

.35

61

1.54

.50

3.91

.000

Research
performance

56

49.53

43.1
061

65.60

66.3
71.54

.12

56

1.50

2.62

61

2.53

2.99

2.03.04

Reviews done
journal articles

for* Only differences significant at the .01 or .05 level (except research performance) are included in the table. The comparison also included variables like recognition, time spent on research, scientific values held by them.

7Some details• A breakdown by gender shows that only 14.3% of
women scientists were born in villages, as opposed to45.9 % of men. While 85.7 % of the women scientists
were from urban origin, 54. 1 % of men scientists docome from cities.
• When each performance measure was taken separately,
the men and women scientists did not differ in themean rates at which they reported having authoredbooks, contributed chapters in books, journal articles,etc.
• women scientists do not differ with men in terms ofsubscribing to research-related values, such as• Female and male scientists do differ in terms ofreviews done for journal articles. Can this be attributed
to the discriminatory practices in the selection of thereviewers? Previous research has shown that womenare underrepresented on editorial boards (White 1985)
as well. Nepotism and sexism has also been reported inpeer review system (Wenneras and Wold, 1997).
• women scientists did not advance to the next rank andremain in the same rank for a long time.
•8• One of the woman scientists had worked for nearlynineteen years in the organization and had ten single
authored papers in the international journal, still at theage of forty-two was on the rank of assistant professor.
• Another lady scientist had worked in the organization
for twenty-three years and had published twenty-threepapers in national and four in international journal but
she held the rank of assistant professor at the age offorty-six.
•• In another case the scientist did publish ten andtwenty-two papers in national and international
journals respectively but still after working with theorganization for fourteen years held the rank ofassociate professor at the age of forty-five.
• Another lady scientist had published ten papers innational, fifteen in international journal and afterworking for nineteen years, till the age of forty-six wasworking as associate professor.

9conclusion• The higher proportions of women at lower ranks are
not a simple function of lower research productivity.
• Only the urban and very selective group of women isable to be in the career of science. This supports
Marxist feminist analysis in which class is moresignificant than gender in determining who goes intoscience• gender distinctions act as organizing principle instructuring the hierarchy within scientific institutions

References• 1.Chakravarthy, R. (1986) Productivity of Indian
women scientists, Productivity. XXVII Oct.- Dec., 259-269.
• 2.Duraisamy,MandDuraisamy,P(1998)Sexsegragation and discrimination among scientificpersonnel. In Gender, Population and Development,M,Krishnaraj, R.M Sudarshan and A. Shariff(Eds)Oxford University Press, Delhi• 3.Gupta, Namrata and Sharma, Arun K (2002).
Women academic scientists in India. Social Studies ofScience. Vol. 32, No. 5-6 pp.901-915.

10• 4.Jaiswal, R P (1993). Professional status of women: acomparative study of women and men in science andtechnology. Rawat Pub. Jaipur• 5. Krishnaraj, M (1978) Working women sciencedegree holders in Bombay, 1976-1978. Research uniton women studies. S.N.D.T, Women’s University,Bombay.
• 6.Krishnaraj - (1991) Essays on women in science,Himalaya Publishers, Bombay.
• 7.Parikh, P.P and Sukhatme,S.P (2004) Womenengineers in India. Economic and Political Weekly,January 10,pp. 193-201.

• 8 Singh, J K. S. (2002) Still a single sex profession?
Female staff numbers in Commonwealth Universities.
Association of Commonwealth Universities.
• 9. Subrahmanyan, L (1998) Women scientists in thethird world: the Indian Experience. Sage Publications,
New Delhi.
• 10.Wenneras, C. and Wold, A. (1997) Nepotism andsexism in peer-review. Nature, 22 May, vol., 387: 341343.
• 11.White, A. (1985) Women as Authors and Editors of
Psychological Journals: A 10-year perspective.
American Psychologist, vol 40,No.5: 527-530.

11