{"id":250189,"date":"2023-06-30T20:04:44","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T14:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=250189"},"modified":"2023-08-31T15:05:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T09:35:17","slug":"why-women-bureaucrats-lose-out-on-senior-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-women-bureaucrats-lose-out-on-senior-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"Why women bureaucrats lose out on senior posts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201cWhy women bureaucrats lose out on senior posts\u201d <\/strong>published in The Indian Express <\/strong>on\u00a030th<\/sup> June 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS 1 \u2013 Issues Related with Women<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>concerns with women bureaucrats in getting top positions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: In June 1991, India’s 10th Prime Minister, P V Narasimha Rao, formed a group of bureaucrats, technocrats, and politicians to initiate the liberalization of India’s economy.\u00a0This team consisted entirely of men.<\/p>\n

Why weren\u2019t women included in the team?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

First,<\/strong> the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), from which the team members were primarily selected, had a limited number of women. Recruitment rules were biased towards men, as only unmarried women were allowed to join the services and were required to resign if they got married.<\/p>\n

Second,<\/strong> by the time Rao was putting together his team, women officers were either too junior in rank or ongoing systemic issues kept them out of senior positions.<\/p>\n

Third,<\/strong> despite the removal of entry barriers, there was a lack of trust in women\u2019s capabilities. Women were often assigned to “soft” departments, and there has been a lack of representation of women in top positions in India.<\/p>\n

Why are women bureaucrats not given top positions in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The issue of representation of women in senior positions in India is not due to a lack of talent. There are highly deserving female civil servants who are just as qualified as their male counterparts.<\/p>\n

However, it is systematic challenges and bias that prevents women from holding top position.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For instance,<\/strong> Renuka Viswanathan, the first woman district magistrate in Karnataka, held a doctorat d’etat (higher than a doctorate) in public finance.<\/p>\n

However, when she sought a position in the finance ministry in the 1980s, her appointment was not easily granted.<\/p>\n

Further, there were many competent women bureaucrats during the 1990s who could have been considered as part of the Rao\u2019s team. However, they weren\u2019t considered.<\/p>\n

Moreover, even when the government hired laterally for the team in 1991, women were given lower positions compared to the men.<\/p>\n

For instance,<\/strong> Padma Desai was offered a lower grade compared to the position her husband Montek Singh Ahluwalia received when he joined laterally at a younger age and with lower qualifications than hers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, organisations like the IMF and the World Bank served as ways through which talent came to India.<\/p>\n

However, even in these institutions men have enjoyed top positions, including the position of executive director (India) to the World Bank, to this day.<\/p>\n

What can be the way ahead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There has been a positive shift in recent years in the representation of women in the Indian civil services.<\/p>\n

For instance,<\/strong> in the latest round of the union civil service examinations, out of the 933 candidates selected, 320 were women, marking the highest number to date.<\/p>\n

However, these numbers do not indicate how many will reach top leadership positions in the services, particularly in the ministries of finance, commerce and industry, home, and defence.<\/p>\n

Therefore, as the number of women entering the services increases, it presents an opportunity for the organization to reevaluate their talent retention and advance policies to ensure that women are<\/strong> equally represented in high-ranking positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201cWhy women bureaucrats lose out on senior posts\u201d published in The Indian Express on\u00a030th June 2023. Syllabus: GS 1 \u2013 Issues Related with Women Relevance: concerns with women bureaucrats in getting top positions. News: In June 1991, India’s 10th Prime Minister, P V Narasimha Rao, formed a group… Continue reading Why women bureaucrats lose out on senior posts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[263,10500,264],"class_list":["post-250189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-1","tag-indian-express","tag-society","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1703679664},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}