'Double Burden' Obstacle to Women in Indian Corporate Sector

Mumbai: The "double burden" of holding a job and looking after the family is the greatest obstacle preventing women in India from moving up the corporate ladder, a report by management consultancy McKinsey & Company said.

In India, Korea and Japan, almost fifty percent of those surveyed believed that family commitments were the primary reason for women leaving the jobs, said the report `Women Matter: An Asian Perspective'. About 45 percent of survey respondents in India said the "double burden" influences most or many senior women to leave the workplace (compared with Asian average of 28 percent).

 In Australia, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, family duties appear to exert less influence. The report further found out that around 50 percent of graduates in Asia are women, but only a fraction make it to the middle management, let alone the top. On average, women account for 6 percent of seats on corporate boards, and 8 percent on executive committees. That is strikingly low compared with Europe and United States, where the comparative figures -- though still low -- are 17 percent and 10 percent, and 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

The study found that despite the low representation of women at senior levels, gender diversity is not yet high on the strategic agenda of most Asian companies, and few senior managers believe this will change anytime soon. If more women are to reach senior positions, they have to be present in the pipeline that feeds those positions, yet in some markets, relatively few women even enter the pipeline, as the rates of female participation in the labour force are low.

 In India, for example, the female labour participation rate is 35 percent, one of the lowest in the world, it said. "Even when women do enter the corporate world, they often fail to progress very far, either getting stuck in the pipeline early in their careers or deciding to leave at middle management. China, for example, has one of the world's highest female labour participation rates, but still only 8 percent of corporate board members and 9 percent of executive committee members are women," said Jin Wang, co-author of the report and Partner in McKinsey's Shanghai Office.