Washington â€" Need and enterprise are propelling more women in South Asia into leadership roles in the work force, from holding management positions in companies to forming their own businesses.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Washington — Need and enterprise are propelling more women in South Asia into leadership roles in the work force, from holding management positions in companies to forming their own businesses.
As the region becomes intertwined with the global economy, the number of nonagricultural jobs in sectors such as textile factories and call centers has boomed. Companies can’t afford to turn away female workers, and families can’t afford to not have their women members work. From those entry-level jobs in factories or service centers, women are gaining experience, confidence and a boost up the corporate ladder. Many graduate to entrepreneurship. The effects continue across societies, as the sight of women in business becomes more common.
“The economic reality turns into an opportunity,” said Teresita Schaffer, a former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka who is now director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The growing economic power of women is difficult to measure. Statistics of women in management positions are scarce and unreliable. In many instances, a woman may run a company, but put her assets under the name of a male relative. But in specific industries, it is clear that women are making strides. In India, from 2006 to 2008, the number of women in the high-tech industry jumped nearly 60 percent to about 671,000. Today, women make up about one-fourth of all information technology workers in India, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies ( NASSCOM ), which collaborates with the Indian government to set policy and practices for the country’s information technology industry.
The boom in microlending has prompted many lower-income women to strike out on their own, using small loans to start their businesses. Nearly all of the 8.1 million borrowers of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh are women. South Asia is the epicenter of the microlending trend, comprising nearly half of all borrowers worldwide.
The rise of women as economic entities has brought changes in societies’ perceptions of gender roles. Schaffer says that 30 years ago in Bangladesh, for example, the CARE organization started a program to help destitute widows by paying them to do road-repair work. Critics doubted the program could work: The image of women carrying rocks on their heads seemed so unconventional. But after CARE officials approached community leaders, emphasizing the economic needs, the program was approved and was a success. On a much wider scale, as the garment industry flourished and more workers were needed, families allowed young women to take those jobs. Despite some families’ worries that their daughters were taking undesirable roles, as those women made money, they became more attractive to prospective suitors. The notion of women as wage earners became more widely accepted.
“People’s concept of the ideal behavior is very traditional, but what they’re prepared to live with is much broader because of the economic reality and their needs,” Schaffer said.
Moving from entry-level worker to manager or company owner can be much harder for women to do than it is for them to convince family members that they can take a first job. But Schaffer said that progress will be made, just as it has been made in Western countries. When Schaffer joined the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service in 1966, some jobs were closed to women, she said. By the time she retired in 1997, a woman, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, was running the State Department. Still, even as women break ground in new job fields, they must find ways to balance their new work responsibilities with their traditional roles of child care and other family obligations. Close-knit extended families — an advantage that South Asian women have over some Western women — may help relieve some of the child-care burdens, but women are still expected to manage a slew of familial duties such as taking care of ill relatives. A 2009 NASSCOM study of female workers in India’s tech industry encouraged companies to provide mentors and training opportunities and develop career paths that provide breaks for family obligations. The study states that Indian society as a whole needs to recognize the needs of working women, and families should “extend support and share burden of balance.”
Despite the hurdles, the next generation is expected to see even more women thrive in the work force. Several South Asian countries, including India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, have achieved gender parity at the primary school level, according to the World Bank. In Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, gender parity has reached the secondary school level. In India, women make up more than 40 percent of the students at engineering colleges, the steppingstones to stable, middle-class jobs, according to the Indian government. In the mid-1980s, no more than 8 percent of engineering college students in India were women.
Schaffer said that it is a widely accepted tenet that once women achieve higher levels of education, they’re more likely to ensure that their children will do the same.
And better-educated women, experts believe, will mean more business ownership by South Asian women and greater economic growth for the region. “Women-run, small- and medium-size enterprises are proven drivers of [gross domestic product], and when they are able to access the tools that they need, from skills training to education to market access, property rights, technology and credit, they can make an enormous difference,” said Ambassador Melanne Verveer, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, at a recent event in Washington.
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This story was released on 2010-08-23. Please make sure to visit the official company or organization web site to learn more about the original release date. See our disclaimer for additional information.