Academia, research and the glass ceiling in India

Source: The post is based on the article “Academia, research and the glass ceiling in India” published in The Hindu on 2^nd September 2022.

Syllabus: GS 2 – Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education.

Relevance: About the glass ceiling of women

News: Gender inequality and discrimination in academia relating to higher education still persist in India.

Two well-known examples of the glass ceiling of women in pre-independence India

Kamala Sohonie: Sir C.V. Raman rejected her request for pursuing research in physics under his guidance only because she was a woman. After satyagraha, she was admitted for one year under certain conditions.

Bibha Chowdhuri: Professor D.M. Bose was reluctant to include her in his research group on the ground that he did not have suitable research projects to assign to women. After a prolonged struggle, she had been included. Her work on cosmic rays in determining the mass of mesons is legendary.

Some well-known examples of Women who broke the glass ceiling

Donna Strickland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, for her work on lasers in 2018. She became the third woman to win a physics Nobel, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963.

How glass ceiling of women impacts women’s growth in STEM?

Women are still an under-represented population globally in hardcore science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

UNESCO findings

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 United States 27% and the United Kingdom 39%.

The highest number of female researchers are in Tunisia, Africa (55%) followed by Argentina (53%) and New Zealand (52%).

Education and faculty

About 43% of women constitute the graduate population in STEM, which is one of the highest in the world. But a) Only 14% of women join academic institutions and universities, b) The total number of women fellows in the three science academies of India is 7% for the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS); 5% for the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and 8% for the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI) and c) The more prestigious the institute, the lower the number of women employees. For example, in IIT Madras only 31 out of 314 professors.

In the corporate world

Participation of women in leadership and decision-making positions in private enterprises (the corporate sector) is increasing. a) The number of women in senior management positions in the corporate sector in India is 39%, b) According to a forecast made by Deloitte, the number of female board members in the management of private enterprises have been growing from 15% (2016) to 19.7% in 2022. At this pace, near parity will be reached by 2045.

What are the government incentives for breaking the glass ceiling of women?

Some of them are, a) Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI), Knowledge Involvement in Research Advancement through Nurturing(KIRAN), Vigyan Jyoti Programme, etc.

Some institutions are setting up crèches so that scientist mothers can carry on with their research work uninterrupted. Universities too are trying their best to be equal opportunity employers.

What can the government learn from the corporate sector in breaking the glass ceiling of women?

1) Mechanism of selection and promotion of personnel in the private sector based on competence or merit, 2) Private sector’s adoption of various schemes: Such as flexi-hour work time, rejoining the workforce after an interim break, sections operated only by women, etc.

So, 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 of rectification issue.