It is estimated that women constitute about 15 per cent of all job applications corresponding to junior management roles in the job market, says Shyamal Majumdar.
'Leaking pipeline' is a term commonly used to describe the drop-out or decline in the number of women at lower to upper levels in an organisation.
The idea was first explored by economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett in her pioneering book Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children.
The book explored the “brutal trade-off” that women in corporate America had made: for instance, 42 per cent of professional women were childless at age 40, but only 14 per cent had planned not to have children. The book, which was published in 2002, described what life was like for career women in the United States.
It also showed how hostile the corporate world was to family life, regardless of one’s gender. However, the solution Hewlett offered – “start looking for a husband/partner and have kids early in your career” – drew mixed response. Some praised her for “breaking silence” on the issue; others disparaged the book as “a high-brow version of a mate-finding manual”. The tone of her book could have certainly been less prudish, but no one has been able to contest Hewlett’s findings.
Is the same situation unfolding in Asia? Going by a study on gender diversity benchmark by the the non-profit organisation Community Business, the answer would be yes. The interviewees – all top female executives – were on average 38 years old; 29 per cent were single and only 37.5 per cent had children.
Though this should be a non-issue if it were a personal choice, the fact is that most of the women interviewed said they wanted children but were putting this decision off until sometime in the future. Most women thought they were being forced to make a lot of “personal sacrifice” to keep their career going. This notion of personal sacrifice was raised specifically by the interviewees in India, Community Business said in its study, which covered India, China, Japan, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
However, it appears a substantial number of female professionals in India are unwilling to make this personal sacrifice — a reason India sees the maximum drop in women representation from junior to middle-level positions, unlike in the four other Asian countries where such a drop occurs from middle- to senior-level positions.
Earlier this month, the human resource research desk of the ICICI Group released an interesting study to understand the reasons for the leaking pipeline.
The analysis shows that at junior management levels in ICICI Bank, the representation of women in attrition is higher by around two per cent than their representation in the total grade population. In other words, if at these levels, women constitute 25 per cent, then their representation in attrition is 27 per cent.
This, in turn, impacts the supply line for higher levels. It is noteworthy that the number of women leaving the bank at middle management levels is also in the same proportion.
That’s because most women in junior management positions are between 26 and 30 years — the ages at which they marry and start a family. The bank says this may not be the sole factor responsible for the two per cent higher attrition among women at these levels, but it is clear that this is a significant reason.
It is estimated that women constitute about 15 per cent of all job applications corresponding to junior management roles (age 26 to 30) in the job market.
While ICICI Bank has been able to attract a higher proportion than the market supply (an average 22 per cent of its hires at these levels over the last three years were women), this is not adequate given the bank’s volume of recruitment — which is increasing year after year. The situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon.
The women selection problem is compounded by the fact that the attrition of women at these levels is also 25 per cent higher than the proportion of women at these levels and that of men.
The bank not only has to recruit more women to maintain its 25 per cent representation of women at junior management levels, but also needs to find more women to replace those who are leaving — all these from the same static supply pool, since close to 78 per cent of eligible female graduates in India choose not to participate in the organised workforce.
The social drop-out – or graduate women choosing to complete their education only because of social reasons and not because of the desire to join the organised workforce – is the reason the replacement hired for women dropping out at most levels is invariably a man.
In addition to that, the profile of banking and financial services jobs is becoming more sales-oriented, which very few women want to pursue as a career option. As many as 60 per cent of the women interviewed cited maternity and child care as the most important reasons for taking a break from work.
The exit data show almost one-third of them have not resumed work in the absence of a support system at home to take care of the child.
The bank says all this disproves the hypotheses that organisations have any control over women’s decision to exit/re-enter the workforce.
Flexible work policies or extended leave can, at best, be a “minor enabler” for those who possess career aspirations. When this conclusion comes from a bank that is known for its female employee-friendly policies, one has to sit up and take notice.
