By Aditi Hari Ramai

Abstract 

The article scrutinizes the subject of women’s participation and position in the IT Sector in India. It argues for structural changes in the sector through an analysis of Japan’s ‘womenomics’ policies and their subsequent failure due to the widespread gender inequality present in all the realms- public and private, professional and personal, workplace and household. It deduces that a state’s misconstrued perception of ‘education is equal to empowerment’ without enabling women to expand their agency into decision-making and ‘gender parity is gender equality’ is flawed. The discrimination against women by depriving them of the same opportunities as men will always hamper growth- both economical and social.

Introduction

The Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, aims to bring about gender parity in the field of Science and Technology through various women-centric programs. These programs are quintessential as they are playing a prominent role in aiding women’s education in STEM rather than the traditional field of humanities, commonly pursued by women. The process whereby such parity is achieved is intrinsically important because it determines whether such efforts are being made to develop women’s capabilities in the interest of the growth of the economy or for enabling the rights of women for their own sake and accomplishing gender equality. The article argues that closing gender gaps in any Industry, Institution or Nation will not eliminate the ubiquitous gender biases, gender norms, and gender roles unless women take on leadership roles to represent parity at higher levels.

Gender Parity Does Not Ensure Gender Equality

India is doing exceptionally well in increasing women’s participation in the IT sector. A study conducted by the CFA Institute showed that India’s IT sector has the highest female participation rate of 30%. Schemes such as the Vigyan Jyoti Scheme were launched on the occasion of National Science Day 2020 which was themed ‘Women in Science.’ The Vigyan Jyoti Scheme addresses the underrepresentation of women in STEM in the country. While such efforts are much needed and form a pre-requisite of sorts in one’s typical ‘policies to achieve equality’ manual, policymakers must be aware that just a mere increase in the statistical value of women in a sector does not ensure equality.

On the occasion of the commencement of the second phase of the Vigyan Jyoti Scheme, Professor Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, the Department of Science and Technology said “The New Education Policy and the Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy could remove the constraints and make use of the demographic dividend to progress long in a short time to help increase the number of women in science.” The demographic dividend being spoken of here raises the query over the pursuit of ‘Women in Science’ schemes in India. Is this a pursuit of genuine gender equality or is the pursuit merely intended to bring about gender parity as a means to achieve economic expansion in the end?

In the case of the latter, such pursuits of policymaking ridicule women as tools of economic growth. They are looked at from a lens of unutilized human capital, with the sole purpose of providing a nation with its current and future labor. Such perceptions limit women’s worth as an equal gender with equal rights and deprive them of important decision-making roles in a system. An insight into the gender representation of women at various levels in the IT Sector of India shall provide more clarity to us about this.

Education Does Not Ensure Empowerment: A Look At Women In India’s IT Sector

According to literature, India’s gender parity ratio at the graduate level is 50:50 in the STEM field and women make up 34% of the IT workforce in India. Such closure of the gender gap and a high rate of gender parity ratio is reflected well in India’s IT-BPM sector, the largest private sector employer in India. It is crucial to notice that 51% of entry-level recruits in the sector are women. However, the superficiality of numbers can be deceiving and one can mistake them for women’s empowerment.

To understand this better, NASSCOM’S Report ‘Women ‘in’Equality-Not Anymore!: Gender Diversity & Inclusivity trends in the IT-BPM sector’ puts into perspective that less than 1% of women in the IT-BPM sector are in C-Suite and executive level positions. The enormous gap in statistics between the number of women recruited at the entry level and the number of women making it to the top decision-making positions brings forth the underlying issue of the existing and persistent gender biases shaping women’s careers in a system of structural and gendered inequality despite a level-playing field offered at the education and recruitment level.

While education has proved to help the conditions and status of the disadvantaged in a society in multifarious ways, only the acquisition of capabilities and the ability to exercise agency is not enough to empower them. What is important is to actualize their capabilities and showcase them at all levels of a hierarchy. Maxine Molyneux’s words in ‘Mothers at the Service of the New Poverty Agenda: Progresa/Oportunidades, Mexico’s Conditional Transfer Programme’, reiterate that empowerment has generally “been understood as a process of transformation involving both the acquisition of capabilities and changes in subjectivity that enable the agency to be exercised. Empowering the poor and the disadvantaged should result in their gaining more voice and presence in decision-making arenas that affect their lives.”

The replication of high gender parity at the highest levels of institutions is inevitable for gender equality because the lack of it only reinforces gender norms and “risks recreating the very problems gender and development seeks to transform” For example, in the case of India’s IT sector, the efforts being made by the government to propel women’s participation in science in India have translated well into an increased number of women’s participation in the IT sector, more than in the USA and the UK. However, the notion of male domination and a patriarchal setup with the absence of women in leadership roles can risk this growth. 

The presence of women in top jobs and their recognition is significant to inspire other women and convey that their contributions are worthy. They are not just aids but the key to the functioning of a system. It’s important because “empowerment is rooted in how people see themselves-their sense of self-worth. This in turn is critically bound up with how they are seen by those around them and by their society.”

Therefore, the purpose of policies that seek to increase women’s participation in non-traditional sectors should go beyond just seeing a greater number of women in the sector. Gender parity shall not be mistaken for ’empowerment,’ it is just the first step towards gender equality. Thus, there is a dire need for the repurposing of policies to achieve an improvement in women’s socio-economic and cultural statuses. Incremental growth in numbers not only at the bottom levels of a hierarchical setup but also at the top levels shall shatter the glass ceiling that holds women back from positions of power.

Japan’s ‘Womenomics’

There is a thing or two that India can learn from the failure of Japan’s developmental policies because of their deeply entrenched gender inequality structure. As a developed nation, one which has managed to bridge “95.3% of its secondary enrolment education gender gap and 95.2% of its tertiary enrolment education gender gap,” it has ranked abysmally low in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index, 116th out of 146 countries, the lowest amongst all developed nations. WEF considers four key dimensions based on which the countries are ranked-

1. Economic Participation and Opportunity
2. Educational Attainment
3. Health and Survival
4. Political Empowerment

Japan’s education and healthcare for women are as developed as they could be. The impact of 1. and 4. is therefore so much that years of investment in education and healthcare for women have completely been overshadowed by the degree of lack of economic opportunities (equal pay for equal work, earned income, promotions) and political empowerment (number of women in ministerial positions and in the parliament). For example, out of the 465 seats in the House of Representatives in 2021, only 9.7% seats were held by women. Similarly, out of all the OECD countries, Japan fares the lowest in the percentage of women in executive positions with 8.3% even though women represent 49.2% of the Japanese workforce. Also, according to the OECD data, Japan has the highest pay gap between men and women at 22% of all OECD countries. Also, due to poor career prospects in formalized and full-time work, Japanese women are disproportionately involved in informalized and part-time work, with poor wages and non-beneficial career prospects. 

Despite attaining the same level and same kind of education as men, the lack of role models and economic and political prospects for Japanese women at every front is a hallmark of demotivation. This has had a detrimental impact on their choices in their personal and professional lives. According to a 2011 study by the Centre for Work-Life Policy, 74% of degree-possessing women in the workforce voluntarily quit their jobs. The reason behind their resignation is not only family obligations or parental duties but also because they found their careers are at a standstill with no progression. In fact, only 34% of the total women quitting their jobs did it for childcare.

Yuriko Koike, the Governor of Tokyo, described the gender issues and barriers for women in Japan as not just a “glass ceiling” but an “iron plate.” The iron plate has made it so hard for women to function and advance in their careers, that it has had the following two impacts: an increase in the number of women leaving the workforce and women refusing to give birth. One would think that women staying at home would lead to an increase in the total birth rates. For example, Indian states like Bihar where women are least educated, also record higher population growth. Contrary to this, Japan’s fate has come full circle as it recorded the lowest birth rate, only 7.109 births per 1000 people in 2022, and a total birth rate of 8,10,000 in 2021.

According to reports, Japanese women’s refusal to get pregnant sprouts from their frustration with the widespread gender inequality in society and a gendered workplace scenario with barely any women representative in managerial posts. The discrimination at work in demanding maternity leaves leads them to quit their jobs. Consequently, they are now adopting the discourse of refusal to provide their nation with a future workforce, such is the sentiment. 

Low birth rates are grave for an economy. The economic expansion of a country depends on two prospects- incremental growth in labor or boosting economic productivity. Low birth rates result in an aging population, an aging population translates into low labor productivity and a lack of workforce, which further translates into low economic growth. Despite being the 4th largest economy in the world and a so-called ‘developed nation’, the success of Japan’s development policies concerning women’s empowerment and gender development is in big question.

Lesson For India From Japan’s Example

The lesson for Indian policymakers and practitioners from Japan’s example is to clarify the approach to development they are taking through their programs focused on developing women’s capabilities in STEM. According to their website, The Department of Science and Technology has established Artificial Intelligence (AI) labs in women’s universities “to prepare skilled manpower for AI-based jobs in the future” while also emphasizing that it’s meant to empower women. With such a two-pronged approach (empowerment of women and development of human capital), it is important to decide on the pursuit of such schemes because it is dangerous to conflate the two.

Japan’s low indices despite a high educational attainment rate, wide healthcare coverage, and massive investment in gender development explain to us that it is not a lack of policy, initiative, or opportunity that has led to such an outcome, it is a society’s misunderstanding of gender parity as gender equality and closing of gender gaps as empowerment, which has led to such a failure. The World Inequality Report 2022, showed that men earn 82% of the labor income as compared to women who earn only 18% of it in India. With such numbers, gender pay equality in India, despite equal recruitment opportunities, seems like a distant dream. Therefore, just an achievement of an equal number of men and women in the workforce of a sector is not the solution. The focal point should be improving the status of women, empowering them in a true sense and thereby achieving overall development.

Conclusion

The empowerment of women to elevate their status, improve their conditions, and bring about gender equality needs women to be placed in the system. This needs to be done in such a way that they can voice their concerns and opinions in the formulation of plans, actions, and visions and their subsequent implementation. When policies and practices are not a token of paternalistic benevolence but address equity and thrive on rights-based development, outcomes are more likely to generate socio-economic dividends. In the scenario of ‘womenomics’, as seen in Japan’s case, the very problems that gender and development strive to transform are aggravated, inducing counter-productive socio-economic effects. Therefore, policymakers, practitioners, corporate stakeholders, and society as a whole need to clarify their pursuits, intents, and aspirations concerning the role of women in an industry, institution, or nation while formulating policies because if a veil of ‘women empowerment’ is hiding the true intent of using women as tools for development then it’s a losing game for all.

Author’s Bio 

Aditi Hari Ramai is a second year Masters in Public Policy graduate student at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy. 

Image source: Campbellsville University