Almost any observer of the Indian business scene will tell you that several factors could make India uncompetitive in world markets — lack of physical and social infrastructure, capacity and a skilled workforce, and land acquisition for projects being the ones cited most often. The last month has shown that India Inc can add another reason, and place it fairly high up in the list: crimes against women.
True, this is largely a societal issue and a law and order problem. But like anywhere in the world, India Inc functions within a social paradigm and is defined by it, so it might be in its interests to explore a stronger advocacy role for women’s safety. If the Indian economy continues to expand the way it is, India Inc will need not just more workers but more skilled people. Women account for almost half the country’s population, and their participation in white collar jobs is growing — the IT, banking and biotech industries being examples of a gradual breaching of the glass ceiling. If urban environments continue to be hostile to them, many will be discouraged from seeking employment in careers like this that may require demanding hours. That, in turn, will create a problem for an expanding India Inc because its choices will continue to be limited to a smaller, mostly male, talent pool.
Discouraging women from joining the white collar workforce also amounts to a huge waste of resources. Recent research from the Center for Work-Life Policy titled “The Battle for Female Talent in India” shows that women’s participation in higher education — especially the sciences — is growing steadily. Based on that research, an article in the Harvard Business Review, co-authored by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid of the Center*, points out that women not only make up 42 per cent of India’s college graduates, but “relatively unfettered by cultural preconceptions that steer Western women away from the ‘hard’ sciences”, they account for 44 per cent of degrees in the sciences and 25 per cent in business administration, management, or commerce.
The research also shows that more than half of female college graduates also hold a postgraduate degree, in comparison to 40 per cent of men. Hewlett and Rashid quote an HR manager for a global conglomerate as saying, “If you look at the number of top graduates from any Indian school,” whether in management or engineering, “a disproportionate number are women.”
These women are ambitious too. Over 85 per cent, Hewlett and Rashid write, “aspire to hold a top job, showing levels of ambition nearly double that of their US counterparts and markedly higher than women in Brazil, Russia, or China”.
Considering the growing demand for skilled talent, it is surely in India Inc’s interest to push the envelope on making India safer for women to work. Yet, the response when women on night duty are assaulted — and these are the reported cases, much goes on that is not reported — has been underwhelming. Pressure for safer environments for women comes from women’s and special interest groups; the corporate lobbies and the IT-enable service companies that employ a high proportion of women tend to remain silent. This is not to suggest that all companies are remiss about providing security for their women staffers. Indeed, the fact that many do so adds to their costs, a factor that is rapidly making India globally uncompetitive in BPO services (South- east Asian cities are far safer for women, one reason the region is giving India a run for its money).
In general, corporations and their lobbies remain curiously fearful of publicly criticising politicians, however constructively. But in the case of women’s safety, the thought of advocacy doesn’t even arise. So when Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit deplored the “adventurism” of a woman TV staffer who was murdered in the early hours last year or when Ram Sene thugs attacked women in pubs, objections from, say, a CII or Ficci would have sent out a message that would have been far more potent than the vocal and expected indignation from women’s groups.
A little more corporate courage wouldn’t go amiss. After all, it is India Inc that has been the most potent agent of economic transformation and, by default, social change. Lobbying for women’s safety would only enhance this progressive image — and benefit it much more in the long run than, say, subverting journalists and politicians.
*http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hewlett/2010/12/indias_crown_jewels_female_tal.html
