Intersections of Gender and Age for Women’s Restricted Career Progression in Indian ICT Sector

Abstract

A plethora of studies have documented that women in Western contexts often do not choose to pursue computing education or enter ICT careers (Trauth, 2006). However, research on India offered a different perspective that Indian women are increasingly choosing to study computing and enter ICT occupations (Gupta, 2015). Though masculine cultures of engineering observed in the Western contexts that are often cited as the main reason for women's turnover from ICT careers (Adya, 2005; Ahuja, 2002; Trauth, 2006) are not replicated in the Indian contexts (Gupta, 2015; Dhar-Bhattacharjee and Richardson, 2017); yet studies point that almost 48% of Indian women choose to exit ICT careers during junior to middle management transition (Gender diversity Benchmark (2011). It is not clear as to why Indian women choose to exit ICT workforce (Ravindran and Baral, 2013) despite viewing ICT as gender neutral in the Indian context (Gupta, 2015). This study adopts an intersectional approach to understand the reasons behind Indian women's decision to exit ICT careers during junior to middle management transition. The study adopted qualitative methodology to interview 30 women participants who left ICT careers during junior to middle management transition. The study suggests that the women experienced less developmental opportunities due to 'life-course events clock’, ‘achieving career plateau due to minority religion status’ and ‘difficulties in approaching male mentors due to concerns for respectable feminity’. The study contributes to the literature suggesting the term 'life-course events clock’ to be one of the important barriers for women's career in Indian context.