The Corporate World in India
A peek into the lives of women managers
The Economic Times on 7th March 2020 reported that the total women working in India were about 20.7%, and it had declined from 30% in 1990. Out of this figure, 14% of women were from rural India.
This story becomes interesting because people generally think that the urban woman is having a cakewalk and is able to do what she wants to do. Not really!
Women working in urban areas have been seen in India in the corporate sector after 1991 when globalization and liberalization set in and new areas of professional development took place. Jobs opened up with the advent of professions like the information technology sector, the opening of call centres, hospitality industry, entertainment, travel and tourism, banking, and education. A minuscule of other professions employs women. It is indeed a tough world for women managers today.
While teaching courses in the management department, I realized that a large number of young women took admission in the MBA course aspiring to become managers. Being in the academic world I had a chance to meet an increasing number of women in public forums, in alumni seminars and symposia, and various professional bodies. These women were courageous as they had entered the Corporate World, which in Indian society was considered to be a ‘man’s’ world.
How many women do we know become managers? How do they fare in their jobs? What is the length of time they continue with their jobs and how are there relationships at work and at home? Are they able to establish a complimentary home and office time?
It portrays the sensitivity of women and their perceptions of the society, their dilemmas when they are confronted with ideas and expectations of the traditional society, and the demands of conforming to a contemporary perceptive code of conduct. It highlights the values, attitudes, and beliefs of women in formal work organizations and the primary family system.
I Women and the workplace
(i)Job positions
The job positions of women and age classification showed that in India, the first job of a person begins at the age of 22. I found that amongst the management students there was no bar between the young men and women and those in the age group between 22–35 years worked in the position of executives or assistant managers. (executives and assistant managers are used interchangeably).
Those between the ages of 35–45 years qualified to become managers.we. Women also reached the positions of responsibility as managers and then the positions dwindled in senior positions like branch managers or those with responsibilities of a general manager or vice president.
What happened to these women after a certain point? Why was their a surge in the increase of males and a sudden reduction of women in senior positions calls for concern?
(ii)Work Involvement and engagement
Are the women managers oriented towards their work?. The motivation to work is essential because it inspires involvement in work. The assumption being that job satisfaction leads to efficiency and responsibility. Motivation has been identified with salary, workplace, recognition, security, incentives, power, satisfaction with work, and other facts
Social change has taken place in India and women are responsible, motivated, and highly competitive. They take their jobs seriously and are often ribbed by their counterparts when she acts more efficiently than the male counterparts and jokes about women not needing jobs and only doing for pleasure also goes on but they manage well to stand upright in their positions.
(iii)Mobility
Women found it difficult to travel with home responsibilities and with children or parents. There are several changes in society and women are beginning to travel but they suffer some inner conflict and prefer to take up jobs with less mobility in terms of travel or transfers. Many of them refuse inter-city transfers with promotions for family reasons.
Marriage is very important in Indian homes so quite a few leave their jobs and restart with new career possibilities even though both the young woman and the male had jobs of equal ranking before marriage. This is because the occupational prestige of a husband is considered to be more important in India.
(iv)Relationship with peer group and subordinates.
Aggressive women managers do not have any problems with their male colleagues because they dominate them. The slightly submissive females do have problems even when they are equally well qualified and are getting similar salary structures. They also have problems with subordinates for the acceptance of a female boss is still ‘new’ in Indian conditions.
(v)Top managerial positions
Women are bold, they are good middle-level managers but they stop here. The topmost positions still belong to male managers. The executive directors, director generals, managing directors are all male. Very few women qualify for those positions in India.
II. WOMEN AND FAMILY LIFE.
i) Change in style and age of marriage
In India, marriage is considered to be very important for women. The marriageable age used to be between 20–25 years. However, now the scenario is changing a lot. Women in the corporate world are professionally qualified and like to establish themselves in their job before getting married. The marriageable age has now shifted between 28–30 years of age.
Marriages in India were traditionally arranged by the family but now 40%of professional women prefer to marry by choice but with the blessings of the elders in the family.change.
In a patriarchal society, women marry within the same caste and religion. There are still barriers to choices. They are conditioned by the parents even if it is a marriage by choice to consider their husbands to be the ‘supreme boss’. This has resistance and a lot of breakups in marital life in the changing scenario.
ii) Restricted social life.
On weekdays it is extremely difficult to socialize with work commitments. The family had to be very supportive of their lack of interest in socializing activities. They could not sometimes on weekends also spend with friends or party with them even if they wanted to.
They spend their time after office hours completely with family and compromise on social life at home and public relations at work. The compromise situation leads to stress, exhaustion and guilt complex of women.
iii) Family and home
Although women took decisions on purchases and savings and investments jointly with their spouse, they had to make a lot of adjustments, in the house regarding cooking, cleaning, and children were largely the responsibility of women. This has changed a lot as a male spouse is also now cooking and cleaning the house. During this pandemic situation of COVID 19, men reportedly made a lot of adjustments when they had working wives.
women had to complete the formalities of home responsibilities but gender equality had improved. Due to rising rents and expenses in cities men had no choice but to adjust so that women could work and bring in their share of income to the household.
(iv) Children
Couples settled for one child and the birth of a child was usually delayed due to work commitments. Moving out of the two children phenomenon in India requires courage system requires courage as it is not considered a normal family behaviour pattern in India.
Problems begin at the child-rearing stage. It is at this time the women managers often play second fiddle and move out of the job stream.
Part-time jobs are not available and corporate organizations already feel burdened with the maternity policy of 2017 of the Government. The Maternity Benefit Amendment Act provides for paid maternity leave changing the existing 12 weeks to 26 weeks.
Organizations do not encourage women to continue in their senior positions and so there is a fall out at this time of their career. Career growth in Indian homes for women is not given priority.
(v) Balancing work and family life
Indra Nooyi now the Chairman of PepsiCo acknowledges the difficult task of balancing the roles of family and work. She admitted that she could not give time to her children and her mother played a strong role in her being able to work.
Women in the corporate world have to take the help of ‘mother’ or ‘mother in law’. sometimes mother or mother in law’s shift in with the couple temporarily to support them in bringing up the child so that the woman can continue with her duties at work. Office work extended from 10–12 hours and women found it difficult to continue
Conclusion
#1. Women are increasingly getting educated as engineers, lawyers, doctors, and business and management professionals. They are able to get jobs and compete with their male counterparts.
#2. Women are able to join in the same position as the male at the entry-level but the job hindrance is only when home responsibilities increase, they move out of the job stream.
#3. Women are more independent with economic independence and their spouses also adjust with them. Even then independence and career choices and balancing home and family life are very stressful and this leads to strain and break-ups among couples.
#4. Women face resistance from their peer groups especially males and their subordinates and they have to learn to manage and be more aggressive but eventually things do settle down.
#5. Women are capable and well educated. Even then they do not reach top positions as they take breaks due to marriage or mobility issues, home responsibilities, childbirth, and child-rearing.
Women are not encouraged at senior positions at the workstream because they take breaks due to maternity and family responsibilities. This creates work disruptions and so they have layoffs. They have no time to do public relations at the office as the home is always calling them. I am reminded of a quote by Beyonce who said, “I have so much admiration for women who are mothers, who balance family and work.”
Change in Indian society is slow, but women have definitely started working towards social change by courageously shifting from traditional rules of marriage to modernity and equality in corporate roles.