Gender Inequality in the Work Environment at Institutes of Higher Learning in                Science and Technology in India

Gupta, Namrata; Sharma, Arun

doi:10.1177/0950017003174001

Cited by 32 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Many women noted that the “boys club” culture in the engineering field still exists and many participants in our study stated that it made them feel like an outsider. These comments are consistent with other reported research on women’s experiences in STEM occupations (Farrell, 2002; Gupta and Sharma, 2003; Hewlett and Luce, 2005). The lack of altruism needs indicated that working in engineering did not require a lot of interpersonal interactions.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Women’s Reasons for Leaving the Engineering Field

et al. 2017

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Among the different Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math fields, engineering continues to have one of the highest rates of attrition (Hewlett et al., 2008). The turnover rate for women engineers from engineering fields is even higher than for men (Frehill, 2010). Despite increased efforts from researchers, there are still large gaps in our understanding of the reasons that women leave engineering. This study aims to address this gap by examining the reasons why women leave engineering. Specifically, we analyze the reasons for departure given by national sample of 1,464 women engineers who left the profession after having worked in the engineering field. We applied a person-environment fit theoretical lens, in particular, the Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA) (Dawis and Lofquist, 1984) to understand and categorize the reasons for leaving the engineering field. According to the TWA, occupations have different “reinforcer patterns,” reflected in six occupational values, and a mismatch between the reinforcers provided by the work environment and individuals’ needs may trigger departure from the environment. Given the paucity of literature in this area, we posed research questions to explore the reinforcer pattern of values implicated in women’s decisions to leave the engineering field. We used qualitative analyses to understand, categorize, and code the 1,863 statements that offered a glimpse into the myriad reasons that women offered in describing their decisions to leave the engineering profession. Our results revealed the top three sets of reasons underlying women’s decision to leave the jobs and engineering field were related to: first, poor and/or inequitable compensation, poor working conditions, inflexible and demanding work environment that made work-family balance difficult; second, unmet achievement needs that reflected a dissatisfaction with effective utilization of their math and science skills, and third, unmet needs with regard to lack of recognition at work and adequate opportunities for advancement. Implications of these results for future research as well as the design of effective intervention programs aimed at women engineers’ retention and engagement in engineering are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Women’s Reasons for Leaving the Engineering Field

et al. 2017

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“…Venkatesh et al [66] find that in STEM research careers, promotions depended more on gender than on productivity. Gupta [29] notes that social prejudice against working women greatly limits women from obtaining top positions. Although the above work addresses Indian women's technology careers in piecemeal fashion, no systemic analysis of their career trajectories has been conducted.…”

Section: Gender Disparity In Computing In Indiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unexpected Entry and Exodus of Women in Computing and HCI in India

Thakkar

Sambasivan

Kulkarni

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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In India, women represent 45% of total computer science enrollment in universities, almost three times the rate in the United States, where it is 18%. At the same time, women make up an estimated 25-30% of the HCI community in India, half the rate in the U.S. We investigate the complexities of these surprising phenomena through qualitative research of Indian computer science and human-computer interaction researchers and professionals at various life stages. We find among other things that Indian familial norms play a significant role in pressuring young women into computing as a field; that familial pressures and workplace discrimination then cause a precipitous exit of women from computing at the onset of marriage; and that HCI occupies an interstitial space between art and technology that affects women's careers. Our findings underscore the societal influence on women's representation in the tech sector and invite further participation by the HCI community in related questions.

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“…It is practised in organisations that are infl uenced by people who comprise it and who are, in turn, a product of their own socio-cultural context. As part of a wider social context, the socio-cultural norms and biases infl uence the interactions and the environment in the institutes (Gupta andSharma 2002, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Inequality in the Work Environment at Institutes of Higher Learning in Science and Technology in India

Cited by 32 publications

References 15 publications

Women’s Reasons for Leaving the Engineering Field

Women’s Reasons for Leaving the Engineering Field

The Unexpected Entry and Exodus of Women in Computing and HCI in India

Doctoral Research Environment in an Indian Institute of Higher Learning in Science and Technology

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