Gender Neutral Workplaces in India for Women's Career Advancement.
| Date | 01 July 2023 |
| Author | Das, Seema,Jha, Sumi,Das, Seema^Jha, Sumi |
Introduction
Gender diversity and inequality issues may be the oldest and most common diversity concerns (Shen, Chanda, D'netto & Monga, 2009), yet there is scope for better worlkplaces. For an emerging economy like India, female labor force participation has been a concern for quite some years. As per World Economic Forum, Gender Gap Report, (2021), India ranks at a low of 151 amongst 156 countries on the sub-index of economic participation and opportunity.
Previous studies related to gender have concentrated on barriers women face at the workplace and discussed issues like long working hours, work-family conflict, and workplace-to-home spillover due to gendered practices of the organizations (Boone et al.,2013; Castro, 2012; Nsair & Piszczek, 2021). Studies also discussed Joan Acker's gendered workplace definition of 'ideal worker' (Poorhosseinzadeh & Strachan, 2020; Boone et al., 2013), less powerful and ineffective professional networks (Greguletz, Diehl & Kreutzer, 2019), oppression (Adapa & Sheridan, 2021) and getting penalized for the usage of flexibility benefits (Borgkvist, Moore, Crabb & Eliott, 2021; Tanquerel & Grau-Grau, 2020) as barriers to the career advancement of women.
In India, several principal bodies like the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) along with the government directives have taken up several initiatives to improve the female labor force participation and women empowerment. As per the Companies Act, 2013 it is mandatory to appoint at least one woman director as a board member in certain types of companies. The POSH Act came into existence in 2013 and established a mechanism for dealing with sexual harassment complaints in Indian workplaces.
Despite all the efforts, there exists the not-so-favorable advancements made in the workplaces in India toward gender-neutral and inclusive workplaces (Haq, 2012). Foley and Cooper (2021) state the need for urgent attention to address workplace gender inequality issues in the post-pandemic era, as the gap seems to have widened. Mavin and Yusupova (2020), expressed how the pandemic disrupted the progress toward gender equality. Haq (2012) found that the presence of diversity issues, equity, and equality challenges, and inclusion need for minority groups (women) calls for more awareness and research, which will ultimately help in eradicating discrimination, harassment, and exclusion from Indian workplaces. Given the prevailing situation, the current study aims to understand employees' experiences from a gendered lens as individuals. Using Joan Acker's theory of gendered organization (1990), this study aims to explore the following:
RQ1) Though initiatives and policy advocacy are happening at the national and some times at the organization levels, how and why do workplaces seem to be still gendered?
RQ2) How is it impacting the career and gendered experiences of women in Indian workplaces?
The research aims to contribute to the Theory of Gendered Organizations by bringing forth the experiences of individuals in Indian workplaces which are yet to be gender-neutral. Therefore, in this article, we adopt an interpretivist (Crotty, 2020) perspective to understand the gendered and gender-neutral experiences of both men and women; this may help us uncover the exact interventions to pave the way for gender-neutral Indian workplaces at the practice level.
In what follows, we review the literature on gender-related studies concentrated on barriers at the workplace for women's career advancement, highlighting limitations of understanding the impediments from a gendered lens. The findings indicate current practices and possible areas of improvement, which gives hope and direction for women's career growth. We conclude by highlighting the contributions made by the study to the theory of gendered organizations, by discussing the themes from the gendered lens and the gendered organization theory indicating the potential areas which when addressed, can bring positive progress in gender diversity, equity, and inclusion at workplaces.
Barriers Due to Gendered Nature of Organizations
The Theory of Gendered Organization (Acker, 1990) holds the premise that organizations are not gender-neutral and are designed in a manner that gives fuel to the existing biases and stereotypes. The Theory of Gendered Organizations suggested the need for a systematic theory of gender and organizations for several reasons, like disparity in pay, income, status inequality, the gendered organization culture, the masculine nature and design of organizations. We wish to compare our findings based on Joan Acker's framework and explore where we stand in the Indian workplaces today. Time demands affect women and perpetuate work-life conflict for everyone differently, depending on their respective life stages. Castro (2012), has studied the way time demands are (re)created by masculinities and states that paternalistic relations prevent women from complying with time demands impacting their career advancement adversely. Gentry et al., (2015) reported that when bosses rated career derailment potential as an outcome, the negative relationship between empathic concern and career derailment potential was significant only for women. Ineffective behavior displayed by women managers faced higher adverse career consequences compared to their male counterparts (Bono et al.,2017).
Bowles et al., (2019) observed that women receive higher resistance while negotiating within organizational roles, and successful role negotiation for counter-stereotypical career paths was more significant in closing the overall gender gap than compensation negotiation. Regarding the role incongruity theory, van Osch and Schaveling (2020) argue that men's career advancement is hampered due to part-time employment compared to women, challenging the idea that part-time work affects women in particular. Women reach top positions faster than men if their organizational tenure is high compared to men, suggesting evidence of institutional pressure for advancing women (Bonet et al.,2020).
Methodology
Gender researchers commonly use qualitative inquiry due to the availability of multiple qualitative approaches, which helps them deepen their understanding, improve empathy, and inspire social change (Chatfield, 2018). The researchers adopted Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to collect data, intending to bring men and women together on a common platform and exchange ideas and experiences. The goal of the FGDs was to understand and elicit the different perspectives that people hold on factors impacting the career advancement, of employees in an organization. Three group transcripts were analyzed using the thematic content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) resulting in three levels of codes namely, 1st level coding (Codes), 2nd level coding (Family), and 3rd level coding (Themes). An inductive approach helps researchers with themes suggesting and pointing to the gendered practices at the...
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