Our muddled attitude to women in the workforce
PremiumA survey has revealed that most Indians support equal rights for men and women—and also preferential male access to jobs when scarce. We must work harder on gender parity
History can weigh upon us in ways we do not realize. It may even have a bearing on our muddled gender attitudes, as revealed by a study done by Pew Research Center. The opinions of nearly 30,000 adults were polled across India in the last four months of 2019-20. While a heartening four-fifths of respondents—79% of men and 82% of women—affirmed that it’s “very important for women to have the same rights as men", a similarly large proportion were found to agree with the proposition that “men should have more rights to a job when jobs are few". It does not add up. Prejudices of competence may have little to do with it, as responses to another poser on leadership show. Only a quarter of the sample took the view that men make better political leaders. About 55% expressed a gender-neutral opinion on this (“equally good") and 14% saw women as better for public roles that we could assume are seen as challenging and held in high esteem. It would not be a stretch to attribute this to the country’s stand-out record of being led by women in politics. Indira Gandhi’s prime ministership was over before millennials were born, but Independent India’s history was shaped so heavily by her policies that their legacy lives on—for better or worse—in a wide range of fields, from foreign relations to our banking system. Even today, women leaders are often (and impressively) voted to high office.
So, what could explain the illogic of the job exception revealed by the Pew survey? As large-scale opinion polls cannot afford to use open-ended questionnaires, they sometimes suffer from tick-the-box biases in their format. An ‘agreeability bias’, for example, could slip in if respondents feel any statement proffered is best met with assent, an inclination traced to our social conditioning. If a supportive ‘reason’ is included in an option offered, then their chance of agreeing, even against their finer judgement, could go up. In this case, however, too many Indians gave their nod to unequal job rights for it to be pinned on instinctive concurrence. The attitude also seems consistent with an alarming trend in Indian labour-force participation. By World Bank data for 2019, only about one-fifth of all working-age women in India were either employed or looking for work. This dismal level was a slide from more than a quarter in 2005, and given its apparent link with job scarcity in recent times, our post-pandemic ratio could turn out even worse. In contrast, working-age men in our workforce have held steady at above half their headcount. One explanation offered has been a reduced need for double incomes as hard-up families got better off and opted for more maternal time spent on the home education of children. But the survey suggests even more atavistic forces at work.
That patriarchal values persist is a given. But, sadly, they also appear to be gaining influence. Gender parity should make no space for a ‘breadwinner first’ paradigm that assumes only males play this role. An economy that warps its workforce by gender identity (or any other kind for that matter) would find it harder to optimize its human resources for value generation and achieve prosperity. Globally, more women at work go with better economic outcomes overall as well-identified diversity gains come into effect. The empirical evidence of this advantage is compelling in both small and large settings. While we’ve indeed made progress, it’s clear we need to reform gender attitudes. Let’s summon all our skills of persuasion for this task.
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