Gender inequality in the work environment: a study of private research organizations in India

• Pages: 255-276
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-04-2016-0029
• Date: 18 April 2017
• Published date: 18 April 2017
• Author: Namrata Gupta

Gender inequality in the work

environment: a study of private

research organizations in India

Namrata Gupta

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, India

Abstract

Purpose –Since liberalization in the 1990s, India has witnessed a growth in the number of educated middle-

class women in professions. However, there are few women in leadership positions and decision-making

bodies. While the earlier notion of the ideal woman as homemaker has been replaced by one which idealizes

women of substance, a woman’s role in the family continues to be pivotal and is even viewed as central in

defining Indian culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how and to what extent gender inequalities

are reproduced in the organizations employing educated professionals.

Design/methodology/approach –Based on the perspective that gender is socially constructed, this paper

analyzes gender inequality in Indian organizations through semi-structured interviews of men and women

scientists in two private pharmaceutical laboratories.

Findings –The findings show reproduction of a gendered normative order through two types of norms and

practices: one, norms and practices that favor men and second, socio-cultural norms that devalue women in

public spaces which help to maintain masculinity in the workplace. Although these practices might be found

elsewhere in the world, the manner in which they are enacted reflects national cultural norms.

Originality/value –The paper highlights how various norms and practices enacted in the specific Indian

socio-cultural context construct and maintain masculinity at workplace depriving opportunities to

professional women which affect their rise to leadership positions.

Keywords Gender, National cultures, Developing countries, Organizations, Workplace, Masculinity

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Liberalization in India since the 1990s has created jobs, benefitting urban educated women

the most (Rustagi, 2010). Although the female labor force participation rate has been

declining in India, particularly since 2004-2005 (Das et al., 2015), the number of women

workers with an undergraduate degree and beyond increased over the period 2004-2005 to

2011-2012 (Rustagi, 2013). However, a UN report (WISAT, 2012) found that while India has a

high representation of women in administrative and managerial positions, it has a low

representation of women in decision-making positions. For example, they made up

22 percent of senior officials, managers and legislators with almost no change over the last

five years, but their participation on corporate boards was at merely 4 percent and

representation in national science academies was at 5 percent in 2010. Thus, the questions

that arise are why, despite an increase in women’s participation in educated workforce, is

there a lack of women in higher positions? Is the liberal organizational space gendered and

how is gender constructed in such organizations?

Literature shows that gender is deeply embedded in organizational thinking and in

general, the idea of a universal/ideal worker in organizations is a male unencumbered by

familial responsibilities (Acker, 1990; Bru mley, 2014; Collinson and Hearn, 1996).

Further, socio-cultural beliefs and stereotypes form the basis of gendered practices

in organizations (Ridgeway, 2009; Acker, 2006) and cultural differences lead to differences in

stereotypes across national contexts (Steinmetz et al., 2014). In India, the mid-1990s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 36 No. 3, 2017

pp. 255-276

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-04-2016-0029

Received 17 April 2016

Revised 1 October 2016

9 December 2016

2 March 2017

Accepted 7 March 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

This paper is based on a Senior Fellowship award of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, vide

Fellowship No. F.No. 2−11/10/S.Fel. The author was affiliated to IIT Kanpur for this project.

255

Gender

inequality in

the work

environment

liberalization phase has also witnessed the rise of Hindu ideology, and a middle-class

assertion of family as a value is interwoven with the Indian identity (Donner, 2011).

Educated urban professionals, such as the scientists in this study, constitute the

“Indian middle class.”Discourse on modernity and individualism in this class is

circumscribed by family ties (Belliappa, 2013). While the education of women is receiving

greater attention, reflected in rising enrollments and growth in the number of educated

women in the workforce, research shows continuity in the social normative structure that

gives primacy to women’s family roles (Patel and Parmentier, 2005). Gender inequality is

also influenced by the institutional context (Ridgeway, 2009). Gender stereotypes are

stronger in the male-dominated professions, such as science (Valian 1999).

Based on the perspective that gender is constructed in organizations through interactions

(West and Zimmerman, 1987) and through various formal and informal practices

(Acker, 1990), this paper studies two private research labs and shows that the Indian socio-

cultural context is reproduced at the workplace in two ways: through workplace norms and

practices that are masculine and, second, through the perception and assumptions of

colleagues aboutwomen’s dual burden that devaluewomen in public spaces. Both are related

to the Indian middle-class ideology that identifies “Indian culture”with women’s centrality in

the domestic sphere and to the patriarchal norms inhibiting male-female interaction and

valuing femaledocility and obedience.Further, India is also traditionallya hierarchical society

with organizationsand structures exhibiting a hierarchical culture. The impactof this culture

on women professionals is yet to be understood.

Addressing gender inequality is important fromthe point of view of humanequity and also

for an efficient use of human capital and a healthy economy. The World Economic Forum’s

Global Gender Gap Report (2014) finds a positive correlation between gender equality and per

capita GDP in India. Practices that undermine gender equity also lower organizational

effectiveness (Rapoport et al., 2002). Highlighting the barriers to the rise of women professionals

is the first step toward a full utilization of their potential. The sections below first p lace gender

inequality in the larger theoretical framework of gendered organizations and then discuss the

relevance of the Indian socio-cultural context, followed by methods and findings.

The perspective: construction of gender inequality

Gender is an institutionalized system of social practices for constituting social relations of

inequality between men and women (Risman, 1998). It is a process that is constantly being

enacted in everyday situations (Linstead and Pullen, 2006). According to West and

Zimmerman (1987), “doing gender”involves a complex of socially guided perceptual,

interactional and micropolitical activities casting particular pursuits as expressions of

masculine and feminine natures. Cultural beliefs play a significant role in doing gender.

Shared hegemonic cultural beliefs about gender in various relational and interactional

situations maintain and change the gender system (Ridgeway and Correll, 2004).

Workplace cultures reproduce beliefs about “masculine”and “feminine”and are sites of

construction of gender (Leidner, 1991). Various formal and informal practices at the

workplace might not be recognized as gendered but they create ideas about proper roles for

men and women and produce or reproduce notions about gender in everyday actions or

events (Acker, 1990; Gherardi, 1995). Organizing processes such as gender in recruitment,

differential gender-based evaluations and informal interactions (exclusion from meetings

and informal groups or being ignored at meetings) reproduce inequalities (Acker, 2006).

Cultural beliefs about gender prejudice behaviors, performances and evaluations with

gendered outcomes in organizations (Ridgeway and Correll, 2004).

Among the norms and beliefs that construct gender at workplace, the notion of

“ideal worker”is an important one. It is a masculine concept which assumes long working

hours, continuous availability and complete devotion to work, to the exclusion of any

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