Blog 6: Women Still Missing from Top Jobs in Business, Government in India: Survey

This article explains how women are still facing barriers to leadership positions in the government and private sector in India and across the Asia/Pacific region, according to MasterCard’s latest Index of Women’s Advancement. The ‘MasterCard Worldwide Index of Women’s Advancement’ measures the socio-economic standing of women across Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa. This index is comprised of three main indicators. The indicators are Employment  (Workforce Participation, Regular Employment), Education (Secondary Education, Tertiary Education) and Leadership (Business Owners, Business Leaders, Political leaders). All of these indicators measure the ratio of women to every 100 men in each of the 14 Asia/Pacific markets covered by the research.

To indicate how close or how far women in each market are to achieving socio-economic parity with men scores are indexed to 100. A score under 100 indicates gender inequality in the favor of males; a score above 100 indicates inequality in the favor of females, and a score of exactly 100 indicates equality between sexes. In the overall rankings among the 14 Asia/Pacific markets in order, New Zealand first with a 77.8 index score, followed by Australia with 76.0, then the Philippines with 70.5, then Singapore with 67.5, and Taiwan with 64.7. India had 38.0, Japan had 48.1 and Korea had 49.7 index scores at the end of the spectrum. This indicates that much more can be done to achieve gender equality.

There is an education ranking of 79.3 showing that Indian women have access to secondary and tertiary education. The only problem is that there are barriers preventing them from taking top positions in the government or private sector as indicated by the leadership ranking of 15.9. This information shows that there is much work to be done to remove such institutional barriers allowing women to take up these leadership positions in business and government. There are some immediate improvements that need to be made enable to enhance women’s participation in the workforce. The employment ranking of 43.6 shows that improvement also needs to be made so that women are able to find regular employment.
            The survey indicates overall that there is a lot of room for improvement and a clear need for affirmative action to ensure women’s advancement in Indian society and the work place as well. Georgette Tan, who is the group head of communications in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions, said, “There is still a lot to be done in our region to enhance the role of women across all aspects of society; there are still too few women leaders in government and business, and not enough women-owned and run businesses. There are standout markets which have repeatedly improved in terms of advancing opportunities and access for women, but more needs to be done.” 

This whole article is just a prime example of how women are treated differently in the workplace. Society has their ideal view of women and there is this idea that they are inferior to men. Times are changing and more needs to be done to advance gender equality, not just in the regions named in this article, but the whole world.

Article Link: http://www.siliconindia.com/news/general/Women-Still-Missing-from-Top-Jobs-in-Business-Government-in-India-Survey-nid-142750-cid-1.html