AgVoice | Wearing the Pants!

Switch on the sitcom and one can see the changes. Ads which once glorified education as a prerogative for the male child now have girl children in them; fairness crèmes talk about the father supporting the ambitions of his daughter, and Deepika Padukone was seen donning the garb of a "restoration architect" in a recent Hindi blockbuster. More than ever before, magazines, newspapers and websites portray women in very novel and interesting vocations.

It's gripping, and inspiring to an extent. It seems that the woman of today is a breed apart, with her own mind, and her own choices of a career, and her need for independence and self esteem. Which brought me to an interesting thought, have jobs for women really changed across the decades? Or is it there more awareness of choices and more economic and social flexibility to exercise those choices?

The women of the 60's seemed to be in occupations such as Nurse, school and college teachers, plantation labourers, food preserver and canner, volunteer work in the army, Tea, Coffee & Cocoa preparers workers in the unorganised sector. This was followed by the entry of women into banking services, civil services, back office jobs, and administrative roles in the 70's. The 80's did not see much change, but a consolidation of sorts in the number of women entrants in "secure' bank and PSU jobs.

To the average observer, it seems as though women have more access to education, employment and opportunities than ever before. However, is it all as hunky dory as it seems to be?

The Ministry of Labour and Employment Report of 2008 says "Employment of women in the private sector reflecting an increasing trend except for the year 1983, 1985 and 2003 whereas overall share of women in total employment in private sector remained around 18% which implies the establishments approach to accept women for jobs suiting to them".

The 2007 ILO Report on Global Employment Trends for Women points out that

- "In absolute numbers, more women than ever before are participating in labour markets Worldwide. They are either in work or actively looking for a job.

- More women than ever before are actually in work. The female share of total employment stayed almost unchanged at 40 percent in 2006 .

- Women's share in industrial employment is much smaller than men's and has decreased over the last ten years."

Have the jobs changed as much across the years, not if we go by the data and the trends. It seems as if we have a higher pool of applicants of both genders for the jobs, and the women seem to be performing better on all fronts.

It's not as much about the change in the nature of jobs or the percentage of jobs available to women, as it is mindsets of the women themselves and the socio economic topography. With higher education levels worldwide, aspirations to different kinds of jobs have been on the rise. And while this decade has seen more women achievers in all fields earn their share of the applause, its a momentary high for the woman who is still balancing multiple roles and priorities, and is often unsupported by the social system.

So its not about being a doctor, engineer, architect, astronaut or pilots. It's about hanging in there long enough for the returns to make it all worthwhile, and having her contribution recognised and applauded. It is about wearing the pants. | By Kalpana Bansal, President ' Sales & Delivery, TalentPro India

About the writer:

Kalpana has 16 years of industry experience including 12 years as a corporate manager and 4 years as an Entrepreneur. She has worked with leading companies including Tata Unisys, STAR TV, Watson Wyatt and was an Executive Vice President with MUDRA before founding Beanstalk. An accomplished HR and SAP ERP practitioner, being a member of STAR DTH's founding team under James Murdoch and conducting India's first ever Drop Out Career Fair in 2006 with MET and Mumbai University are some of her unique achievements. Kalpana counts Training and Development, Global Compensation, Large scale manpower planning, Team Development, Technology and Concept Selling as her areas of expertise.