Gender Benchmark Study Shows Equality Gap, India Makes Slow Progress with Careers for Women in Science and Technology

A new gender benchmarking study shows that India is making slow progress for women's advancement in scientific and technological fields.

The study found that the numbers of women involved in science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and may in fact, be on decline in many countries, including the United States.

The study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the U.S., and the EU. It was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation, with lead research conducted by Dr. Sophia Huyer, founding Executive Director of WISAT and Dr. Nancy Hafkin, Senior Associate of WISAT.

Reports indicate that India ranked the lowest of all the countries involved in the study, ranking in the following order: Brazil, South Africa, India, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the U.S. and the EU. These low rankings included poor economic status, access to resources, knowledge economy and health.

Less than 15 percent of women have access to their own bank account, and females hold less than a third of available administrative and managerial positions. While India's enabling policy environment, which has been in place for many years, is very positive, implementation and funding needs to increase substantially before women can equally benefit from the innovation advantage.

However, researchers also point out that there are definite signs of progress, including universal primary education enrollment. Yet, despite efforts made by the countries studied to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results, particularly in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields-less than 30 percent in most countries. Female enrollments in the bio and health sciences in India are very high, at 80 percent, but the numbers drop drastically in engineering and physics enrollments to 35 percent. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board - only 12 percent of the S&E workforce in India was female in 2010.

"These economies are operating under the existing paradigm that if we give girls and women greater access to education they will eventually gain parity with men in these fields," states Sophia Huyer, the lead researcher and founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology. "This has dictated our approach to the problem for over a decade and we are still only seeing incremental changes. The report indicates that access to education is not a solution in and of itself. It's only one part of what should be a multi-dimensional policymaking approach. There is no simple solution."