The Hindu Business Line : Indian women more focused in career: Study

Indian women seem to have not only successfully broken a number of barriers to achieve their full potential in the workforce, but are found to be more focussed in their careers than their peers in Europe and the US. Also women in India are equally committed to their profession as the men, unlike in the US where women seem to be more concerned about creating a right balance between their workplace and home.

While in the US, women (51 per cent) are more interested in balance between personal life and career and less interested in developing new products compared to men (41 per cent), in India the difference between men and women are small, as per a report.

The Shell Group recently surveyed 12,000 students and young professionals in 12 markets around the globe, including India.

The study found that although there are many similarities in what male and female candidates look for in a potential employer - there are still many significant differences.

When it comes to choosing the industry, the female respondents said that they preferred working in automotive industry (25 per cent) compared to consumer electronics (2 per cent), consumer goods (6 per cent), hotel restaurant and tourism (5 per cent), IT/telecommunications (18 per cent), management consulting (6 per cent) and oil/energy/petroleum (4 per cent). Men, on the other hand, are more interested in working in IT/telecommunications (25 per cent) and banking industries (22 per cent).

As regards remuneration, the study shows that women consider a potential employer's ability to provide childcare (26 per cent), extra paid vacation/personal days (27 per cent) and performance related bonus (21 per cent) as important factors in their decision making process, whereas male respondents were more likely to consider performance related bonuses (37 per cent), company cars (30 per cent) and profit sharing (34 per cent) as deciding factors.

When it comes to quality, women find flexible work hours (32 per cent), good career reference (37 per cent) and varied assignments and responsibility (33 per cent) as the most attractive factors.

While men find broad opportunities and inspiring and innovative environment (26 per cent) attractive.

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