Women Resource - Unequal Worlds

Women in our society have fought and come along way however they still do not find this world equal to what a man finds in this planet. I am starting a weeklong series on women workforce christened as Women Resource. The idea of dedicating my next few blog posts on Women and the much needed HR response to the same does not stem from the perception that women are in anyway lesser employees but from the fact that despite the all-round brilliance of women, it is still very much a man’s world and the odds are loaded in all possible ways against women.


In countries like India the general social conditions of women is a worry in itself. In some aspects like literacy, secondary school enrolment etc. it fairs lower than countries like Rwanda, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Have a look at some statistics:

The percentage of women married by the age of 18 in India is higher than Sub-Saharan Africa and Pakistan; the literacy rate of women in India is worse than Iran, Libya, Kenya; the secondary school enrolment of girls in India is worse than Sri Lanka, Bhutan (Table 1); more women are economically active in Sub-Saharan Africa than in India; and, Indian women have lesser presence in Parliament than those in Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan (table 2).


Even in the UN Human Development and gender Inequality study India fairs no better. In terms of Gender Inequality India ranks lower than countries like Rwanda, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, who rank much lower to India when it comes to overall Human Development Index(table 3).

Such statistics are worrying and go on to further point that women who make it to the corporate world have not got things on platter and had to really work against a lot of odds to reach where they have. This doesn’t take anything away from their male counterparts but for them the social conditions and settings are different, expectation are different and odds are much less. If this is not enough reason to write this piece, study after study has indicated that having more women as employees in organization has contributed to high gains for the organizations. Studies by the RAND Corporation and Catalyst, among others, show a clear and positive correlation between the percentage of women board directors in a company’s past and the percentage of women top executives in its future.