What is Glass Ceiling ?
Glass ceiling refers to the fact that a qualified person whishing to advance within the hierarchy of his/her organization is stopped at a lower level due to a discrimination most often based on sex or race. The glass ceiling refers thus to vertical discrimination most frequently against women in companies.
Evidence of the glass ceiling has been described as invisible, covert and overt. Root of the glass ceiling is gender-based barriers, commonly cited in the literature and noted anecdotally. These barriers run the gamut from gender stereotypes to preferred leadership styles and more on to tokenism in the high managerial ranks. Forces like socio-cultural, legal, personal, and organizational that affects the women’s rise to towards the upper position.
Glass ceiling is present all over the world, its vary country to country where degree of intensity of barriers are different. Religious factor, legal factor and economic factor are emerging factors those discriminate always women from men in developing as well as developed countries. Since equal opportunities for women and men but still women do not accomplishment the advancement because of the glass ceiling. For the women who have these opportunities and who are able to have a career, in emerging countries such as China or India, the glass ceiling they confront is no different from that confronted by women in the western world.
Barriers for Women at the Work Place:
- Male and female salary is different at the same job profile.
- Due to the more responsibility like child birth and child rearing gives the result of less experience at the workforce
- It is very tough for the women to come back on the employment after the pregnancy which creates a loop in their career
Origination of Glass Ceiling :
The term was first coined in March 1984 by Gay Bryant, the former editor of Working Woman magazine who was changing jobs to be the editor of Family Circle. In an Adweek article by Nora Frenkel, Bryant was reported as saying, “Women have reached a certain point—I call it the glass ceiling. They’re in the top of middle management and they’re stopping and getting stuck. There isn’t enough room for all those women at the top. Some are going into business for themselves. Others are going out and raising families. Also in 1984, Bryant used the term in a chapter of the book The Working Woman Report: Succeeding in Business in the 1980s
In 1991, the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission was established to gather information regarding the opportunities for the women and find out the barriers which create a problem for women at the top level of top management. Workers climb higher as they get promotions, pay raises, and other opportunities. In theory, nothing prevents women from rising as high as men. After the Women’s Liberation Movement and Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s, many people feel that discrimination is all in the past. However, in practice, there are still barriers
Indian Scenario :
Gender issues, particularly gender inequality and discrimination in academia relating to higher education, perhaps came under the spotlight for the first time in India in 1933 when Kamala Sohonie approached Sir C.V. Raman to pursue research in physics under his guidance. The Nobel Laureate and illustrious director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, turned the request down on the ground that ‘she was a woman’.
Sohonie ignored the refusal which was based on gender discrimination and went on a satyagraha in front of the director’s office. She was then admitted for one year on condition that her work for the year would not be recognised till the director was satisfied with the quality of her research and that her presence did not distract her male colleagues pursuing research.
Similarly, in 1937, Professor D.M. Bose, then Palit Professor of physics at Calcutta University, was reluctant to include Bibha Chowdhuri in his research group on the ground that he did not have suitable research projects to assign to women. Chowdhuri was unfazed and had her way. She joined D.M. Bose’s research group. Her work on cosmic rays in determining the mass of mesons is legendary.
These are only two well-known examples of gender discrimination in academics and there are many more such examples.
In 2018, Prof. Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University, a theoretical physicist who regularly works at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland, claimed at a workshop organised by CERN that “physics was invented and built by men, it’s not by invitation” and that ‘male scientists were being discriminated against because of ideology rather than merit’ implying that women are less capable than men in physics research. CERN called the presentation “highly offensive” and suspended him pending an investigation. Ironically, a day later, Donna Strickland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, for her work on lasers, and became the third woman to win a physics Nobel, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963
The general bias against women which arose out of suspected capability of their intelligence and their mettle in undertaking the arduous task of research was quite common in the 20th century. Things have changed and the glass ceiling has been broken.
But how far have we progressed in the last 100 years in shedding this bias and ensuring that women are on a par with men in academic institutions?
Government’s incentives :
Despite the remarkable improvement in the participation of women in higher education and participation in the workforce over the past decades, progress has still been quite uneven. The Government of India has been ramping up efforts to remove gender inequality by providing incentives for women’s higher education.
Some of these initiatives such as the Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI), i.e., a pilot project under the Department of Science and Technology to promote gender equity in science and technology, and Knowledge Involvement in Research Advancement through Nurturing (KIRAN), i.e., a plan under the Department of Science and Technology again to encourage women scientists in science and technology and also preventing women scientists from giving up research due to family reasons, are noteworthy. Some institutions are setting up creches so that the scientist mothers can carry on with their research work uninterrupted. Universities too are trying their best to be equal opportunity employers.
However, despite all these endeavours, there is still a gender bias that persists and which has not been removed fully. Women are still an under-represented population globally in hardcore science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Women and STEM :
In this respect, India’s position in academia is disappointing.
According to available UNESCO data on some selected countries, India is at the lowest position, having only 14% female researchers working in STEM areas. But India is not very far behind many advanced countries in this aspect.
For example, Japan has only 16% female researchers, the Netherlands 26%, the United States 27% and the United Kingdom 39%.
Countries with a fairly good ratio in terms of an equal number of female and male researchers are South Africa and Egypt, with 45% female researchers each, and Cuba, at 49%. The highest number of female researchers are in Tunisia, Africa (55%) followed by Argentina (53%) and New Zealand (52%).
In India, about 43% of women constitute the graduate population in STEM, which is one of the highest in the world, but there is a downside to this; only 14% of women join academic institutions and universities.
Although male and female participation in graduate studies is comparable, the participation of women in research has dropped significantly (27% female as compared to 73% male). Thus, the visibility of female faculty in universities and research institutes is significantly lower.
But what is bothersome is that the percentage of women in faculty positions begins to shrink with each step up the ladder. The number decreases when it comes to a position involving decision-making. Even recognition of merit when it comes to women is sluggish when it comes to the total number of women fellows in the three science academies of India — 7% for the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), which was founded in 1934; 5% for the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), which was established in 1935, and 8% for the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI), which was founded in 1930.
According to a report published recently, at most STEM institutes, women occupy 20% of all professorial positions. The more prestigious the institute, the lower the number of women employees. For example, in IIT Madras only 31 out of 314 professors (10.2%) and in IIT Bombay only 25 out of 143 professors (17.5%) are women. Analysis of a few leading private universities does not reflect any significant difference. The number of female participants in decision-making bodies such as the board of governors or council of institutes of higher education of repute is abysmally low.
According to a survey by the University Grants Commission (UGC), seven (13%) of the 54 central universities; 52 (~11%) of the 456 State universities; 10 (8%) of the 126 deemed universities; and 23 (~ 6%) of the 419 private universities have female vice-chancellors.
Out of the six Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) established in the 20th century, only IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi have women members on their governing body. As Anita Bhogle in her recent book, Equal, Yet Different – Career Catalysts for the Professional Woman has reasoned, a lot of this is because women are wired differently, and their challenges are different.
In the corporate world :
On the contrary, participation of women in leadership and decision-making positions in private enterprises (the corporate sector) is startling when compared to the reality in academics. The number of women in senior management positions in the corporate sector in India is 39%, which is higher than the global average.
Number of women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies is 15% while female board members in the management of private enterprises has been growing from 15% (2016), 16.9% (2018) to 19.7% in 2022. If this trend continues, near parity will be reached by 2045, according to a forecast made by Deloitte.
It is worth reflecting on the reasons for this discrepancy in female participation in higher positions in these two sectors. The mechanism of selection and promoting personnel in the private sector is mostly based on competence or merit because it is more result (market) oriented with a definite matrix than what it is in the academic institutes. A professor at Cambridge once remarked that the marketplace does not worship false idols and, therefore, makes empirically correct judgements.
Second, encouraging the participation of women in the workforce in the private sector with the adoption of various schemes for women began long ago when compared to the initiatives taken by the Government of India in recent years. Various schemes such as flexi-hour worktime, rejoining the workforce after an interim break, sections operated only by women, etc. were introduced in private enterprises as early as the 1990s with the benefits being reaped now.
Conlcusion
It is hoped the programmes that have been initiated by the Government to empower women in the workforce will usher in gender parity by 2047, which would mark the centenary of India’s Independence. Most importantly, gender equality or parity will happen only when there is a change in mindset and institutions consider women as assets rather than simply a diversity rectification issue.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.