Gender diversity in top B-schools: Do women have an edge?

Ipsita Sarkar Gupta | shiksha.com

The lack of gender diversity in top business schools is being recognised as an issue that needs to be addressed. While some argue that increasing the number of women participants should be a government policy, others call for a change in the admission policy of B-schools. However, except for a few schools, there has been no ground breaking change. These top B-schools of the country that also feature in various world rankings – Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, Indian School of Business – have offered no relaxation to women during their admission process.

However, almost all other top B-schools are giving extra points to women during admission. Here’s a look:

“These steps encourage more women to apply at B-Schools. Families too support women while they pursue MBA instead of asking them to drop out, as has been happening with our previous generations of mothers and grandmothers. Many engineering colleges reserve seats for women. Same approach can be adopted in business schools,” says Mrudula Chepuri, PGP student at IIM-Rohtak. Echoing similar views, Sharmin Chowdhury, PGP student of IIM Shillong says, “Creating 5% or 10% reservation for women can be a good idea.”

According to both Chepuri and Chowdhury, corporate firms look for gender diversity in campus hiring. Chowdhury, a member of the IIM-Shillong placement committee says, “The corporate culture is evolving. More women are entering the workplace. As a result companies coming for placements now, specifically enquire about the number of women candidates in the batch.”

However, Riddhi Kapoor, student at Indian School of Business (ISB), claims that awarding admission points to women can be discriminating to male candidates. “Instead of giving relaxations at B-School level, the government should look into overhauling the policy towards women,” says Kapoor. “Today ISB has 26% female participants without any admission relaxation. Tomorrow, this number will only go up as more women realise what they are missing.”

Management education is a postgraduate degree that can be an expensive affair. The Indian socio-economic mindset often promotes finishing education without a gap. Even educated families often encourage a bachelor’s degree, followed by a quick postgraduate course, especially for girls, so that they can be married off by 23-24 years, said a senior official from a top B-School, who wishes to remain anonymous.

To encourage more women to come back to education post marriage and childbirth, many B-Schools including IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, and ISB are providing housing units and crèche facilities. Women candidates are allowed to come down with their families. In some cases, unmarried women candidates are also allowed to stay with a family member while pursuing a management degree. The trend is fast catching up. Both XLRI and IIM Lucknow plan to introduce such measures soon.

Interestingly, many schools that don’t advocate separate admission policies have a good female ratio in class. The list includes XLRI Jamshedpur, ISB, SP Jain and so on. “This is so because we are sensitive to women during the GD-PI rounds,” said Sunil Varughese, chief brand and sustainability officer, XLRI. “We understand the socio-economic issues they may have to deal with, and are sympathetic towards that. Our Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resources Management has almost 40% women participants,” he added. According to a senior administrative officer at ISB, “If two candidates – one male and one female – have exactly the same points during selection process, we will offer admission to the woman candidate.”

Well, needless to say, efforts are being made both directly and indirectly to encourage more women to pursue management education. Yet, we have a long way to go.