An Indo-British Comparison
Sunrita Dhar-Bhattacharjee
University of Salford, UK
Haifa Takruri-Rizk
University of Salford, UK
ABSTRACT
Gender segregation in science, engineering, construction, technology (SECT) is a common persistent feature, both in India and U. K. Even though culturally the two countries differ in various ways, underrepresentation of women in SECT is widespread and a cause for general apprehension and in recent years this has attracted centre stage in the study of gender, work and family. In this chapter we discuss our research findings of a comparative study undertaken between India and Britain in the ICT sector. With twenty seven interviews with ICT professionals in the two countries, we discuss their views on ICT education, recruitment and employment practices, work-life balance, changing gender relations, opportunities for progression and retention in the two countries taking into consideration women’s role in power and politics in the both countries; how ‘public’ and ‘private ’patriarchy shapes women’s position in the labour market, with an essential backdrop ofpatrifocality’in the Indian context.
INTRODUCTION
In the UK, historically, science, engineering and technology did not rank very highly as an occupation and there are several explanations. In the mid 1960’s, scientists and engineers were ranked below dentists, university lecturers, company directors,
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-759-3.ch004 solicitors and only just above primary — school teachers, unlike in India where an engineering degree undoubtedly enhances social status and increases chances of employability. More recently, India’s IT industry has been growing at a very fast pace with the adoption of economic liberalization policies and emerging as the ‘most watched test of global capitalism ’. Information communication technology (ICT) driven growth and development in India has been observed to have skipped the middle stages of traditional economic development models and ‘leapfrogged’ to technology driven stages of economic development. Yet, a gendered occupational structure in science, engineering, construction and technology (SECT) is very much predominant, like the UK. A gendered occupational structure is often assumed to exist due to social inequality and gender equality is measured by the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). It is generally assumed or implied that greater empowerment of women would reduce gender segregation. But, there are exceptions; in countries where the degree of women’s empowerment is greater, the level of gender segregation is also greater. Interestingly, Sweden with a higher GEM also has higher gender segregation than Japan with a lower GEM.
In this chapter, we focus on the ‘universalistic theorisations’ and ‘particularistic explanations’ to study women’s position of employment in SECT, with a focus on the ICT sector. We look at the role of social and labour market policy in the two countries, how this shapes gender relations and the modification needed to develop an equitable gender division of labour in ICT. We explore the working practices and working cultures of IT companies as a factor in causing the under representation of women engineers in terms of recruitment, progression and retention.