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Women's low participation in IT and Engineering -Is it a supply problem?-Why most people diagnose it the wrong way


If you follow Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar and his Swaminomics piece in TOI, you may have read this article, this Sunday: https://lnkd.in/gDuacDWi

He talked about power of STEM grads in India, out of which 25% are engineers, who land up in these GCCs..
Society of Women Engineers, says, women occupy 29.2% of all engineering classes at enrolment levels for B.Tech in India.
So, this is supply side problem or choice that women have!
Despite that, at junior levels,Lowe's India GCC has 60% women representation and 28% at the VP levels!
Do we see a problem in Gender suppression (unconscious bias) at supply side?
Answer is No. But more insights come from the VP of HR at Lowe's Vidya Munirathnam, where she cites gap in skills levels and also the maternity leave and then missing the tech change bus and thereafter dropping the career advancement jet, all by choice to lead a family and raise kids, and maybe care giving to elderly parents/in-laws at home! 6
We agree this maternity leave (now 6 months and thanks for that to the GoI for mandating it) is causing some problem, though not established by facts as we haven't seen any authentic survey to substantiate this diminisher as an established fact culling career advancement for women!
For simple reason, talk to all women VPs and ask them, why & how, despite this maternity led career whimper, you got here?
I agree, you may miss a promotion for a year due to a kid etc., but to reach a VP level from the associate levels, you have 7 or 8 levels of promotion opportunities.
Also, ask why and how, we have 60% women at junior levels? It's natural and organic or artificially built due or certain policies and focus change on gender equity matter? Most likely, it is as programmed to favor women (Don't take it negatively). Even IITs had for 5 years (2018-2023) a lower cut-off mark for admissions of women! If you have no idea, go check it. Mind you even XLRI has a lower cut-off for women candidates...so no shame and no one is judging anything!
What worries me are a few facts:
1. Why blame a women's maternity leave for slowing down their career?
2. If tech shifts at work are happening at landslide levels and all the time, not just women on maternity for that whole or part of that BIG shift time, rather whole organization goes through a freeze-change-unfreeze (Aka Lewin's OD/Change management model)
3. Assuming, the 60% women share at junior levels are due to design, what design have we got in place to obfuscate this maternity imposed tardiness?

My final take is: HR needs its talent configuration which Laszlo Bock had suggested and had at Google, when he was the Head of People Ops: 30% HR traditional folks in HR, 30% Researchers and trend and practices readers , who are backed by degrees in Psychology, Socio/Anthropology, stats and analytics and rest as People development experts!

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