Barriers to Women Professionals’ Career Growth during Covid-19 in India

Authors

  • Sushama Chaudhari
  • Shivani Inamdar

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34190/icgr.7.1.2187

Keywords:

Barriers, Career Growth, Covid-19, Women

Abstract

The slow advancement of women in their workplaces remains a social concern for corporates and industry experts across the globe (International Labour Organisation Report, 2018). During the covid-19 pandemic, the advancement of women got significantly impacted owing to the increased burden of domestic responsibilities and other personal challenges. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Report (2021), women in India were seven times more likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic and eleven times more likely to not return to work after the job loss. With the Covid-19 pandemic on the rise and spreading, companies were forced to redesign their work systems, initiate and adopt a remote-work setup option. While, a majority of companies continue with the hybrid model, some companies are slowly eliminating it and returning to the regular office norms as before. This change is likely to impact women, especially the working mothers, owing to the uneven distribution of child-care responsibilities, domestic work, etc. Additionally, conventional barriers such as discriminatory practices, mentoring, networking challenges and role conflicts are expected to persist or rather increase in the changed-working models – be it the hybrid, remote, or completely offline system. The present study focuses on identifying the constraints faced by the Indian women striving against the current for their career advancements, both during the Covid-19 pandemic disruption phase and post-pandemic scenario. The insights from the study will be helpful to gain a cumulative understanding about the challenges faced by women owing to the emerging work system and in addressing the future concerns more systematically.

 

Author Biographies

Sushama Chaudhari

Dr Sushama Chaudhari is Professor (HRM & OB) at National Insurance Academy, Pune (India). She has published 34 articles & five Psychometric Instruments. Her research areas include Gender studies, work passion, leadership, generational studies etc. She has more than 25 years of experience in Teaching, Training, and Research, Consultancy.

Shivani Inamdar

Dr. Shivani Chetan Inamdar (PhD, Symbiosis International University) is a visiting faculty at Symbiosis Center for Management Studies, Bengaluru teaching in the area of human resource management, analytics. She has published papers in the area of gender studies, career advancement barriers, human resource analytics.  

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Published

2024-04-18