Women outnumber men in many Indian educational institutions, yet corporate boardrooms remain male-dominated. An International Labour Organization study showed women hold only one in ten managerial positions. Experts said companies with women leaders tend to outperform peers. Business leaders must now focus on these missing women in senior corporate roles.
Summary
Although women in India now outnumber men in many educational institutions, there's more work to be done. A glance at the gender ratio of corporate boardrooms in the country makes the problem clear.
In a 1990 essay for The New York Review of Books, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen first drew attention to the huge gender imbalance in many developing countries, where the sex ratios were skewed against females.
Sen estimated that more than 100 million women had gone 'missing' because of female infanticide and 'son preference' across the globe. That provoked a debate, and helped focus policy attention on protecting the girl child in the developing world.
In India, women now outnumber men in many schools, colleges and universities. Women voters are courted by every other political party. Yet, when it comes to the corporate ladder, the top rungs are still dominated by men.
A recent International Labour Organization (ILO) study showed that women accounted for only one in 10 managerial positions. Globally, that share is about a third. Only two countries in the Asia-Pacific region have fewer women in senior rungs: Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Policymakers need to turn their attention to the 'missing women' in corporate board-rooms. So should business leaders. Companies with women leaders tend to outperform peers, the ILO study shows.