New CTI report to be released next week.
By American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: A new research report to be released next week from the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) reveals surprising news: India’s women professionals are realizing their career ambitions remarkably well. In fact, they’re not just succeeding at the difficult balancing act that confronts the vast majority of working women around the world; in some critical ways, they are far ahead of their counterparts in the United States, Germany, and Japan.
A blog on the Harvard Business Review by CTI President Sylvia Ann Hewlett, says that a little over one-third (36%) of the 775 college-educated women surveyed in India off-ramped, that is, voluntarily quit their jobs for a period of time. This is on par with the U.S., Japan, and Germany. But the amount of time they spent out of the workforce was less than a year.
Many Indian women prefer to step back instead of stepping out: 73% take a scenic route, opting for part-time work, flexible work arrangements, or a position with fewer responsibilities, compared with 58% in the U.S., 49% in Germany, and 36% in Japan, says Hewlett giving a preview of the report.
Women all around the world face a barrage of barriers — both cultural and professional, at home and in the workplace — blocking their ability to pick up their careers where they left off. The most startling figure, however, is not that an overwhelming 91% of Indian women want to return to work but that so many succeed in on-ramping, she says.
More from the Harvard Business Review blog:
That the story is so markedly different in India is due to the economic dynamo that women help power. Even though the torrid growth of the past decade cooled to 5.3% in 2012, the outlook is far healthier than in many mature markets of Europe and North America, fueling an ongoing war for talent.
CTI research uncovered a troubling trend for employers: 72% of women who want to on-ramp do not want to return to the company they left. Dissatisfaction with their rate of career progression drives almost as many women out of the workforce as childcare.