India\u2019s private sector research companies appear to employ a larger proportion of women in core research and development activities than government-funded major scientific agencies do, according to data in the Science and Technology Indicators (STI), 2018, a periodic compendium of the state of scientific research in India, released this month.<\/p>\n
Of the 20,351 women employed in private R&D companies, 15,011 \u2014 or about three in four \u2014 were involved in \u201cR&D activities\u201d and the rest in \u201cauxiliary or administrative activities\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, of the 23,008 women in \u201cmajor scientific agencies\u201d, fewer than half \u2014 or 10,138 \u2014 were in the same \u2018R&D activities\u2019 category.<\/p>\n
The STI is prepared by a division of the Department of Science Technology, the National Science and Technology Management Information System, and is based on data provided by a range of scientific establishments across the country.<\/p>\n
A scientist told The Hindu<\/em> that, on the whole, private sector companies had a greater commitment to ensuring that women scientists were fairly represented in recruitment, promotions and appraisal processes than in many scientific organisations. \u201cManagers have to answer why women in their teams are not promoted or why, for instance, are women dropping out of their workforces,\u201d said the person who is now in a private research organisation but was formerly an academic in a government-funded institution. She declined to be identified citing company restrictions. \u201cHowever, in several government scientific organisations this is just not a priority,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The 2018 indicators reiterate the historic trend of India\u2019s scientists being overwhelmingly men. For every one of the 15,011 women counted earlier, there are six male scientists in private sector R&D establishments, or about 92,000. However that proportion improves to about one in four in major scientific agencies where there are 43,753 male scientists in \u2018R&D\u2019 for the 10,138 <\/strong>women equivalent.<\/p>\n Overall, India had 341,818 scientists in R&D with nearly 2,03,759 employed by government institutions or in the higher education sector. The bulk of scientists (in private and publicly funded organisations included) were in \u2018Engineering Technology\u2019 (1,21,531) followed by the Medical Sciences (32,143) and Natural Sciences (32,092).<\/p>\n Earlier too, inquiries have been launched by independent commissions as well as the NITI Aayog to ascertain causes for the inadequate representation of women scientists. \u201cThe large drop in the number of women between the doctoral and professional stages appears to be in part due to social pressure on women to have a family which is seen as incompatible with a professional career. There are also patriarchal attitudes in hiring practices, so many women are discriminated against at this stage as well, with administrators deciding that women \u2018should\u2019 be opting for family over a career,\u201d according to a detailed investigation by Rohini Godbole of the Indian Institute of Science, and Ramakrishna Ramaswamy of Jawaharlal Nehru University, for the Indian Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nHistorical trend<\/h2>\n