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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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.