Satisficing and structured individuation: A study of women workers in Calcutta's IT sector

Dutta, Mousumi and Husain, Zakir (2010): Satisficing and structured individuation: A study of women workers in Calcutta's IT sector.

Abstract

It was initially believed that the rapid growth of the Information Technology (IT) industry in India would generate less exploitative avenues of employment for women. Further, economic empowerment would strengthen the bargaining power of women within the household and improve her self-esteem. However, recent studies argue that the IT sector has been unable to isolate itself from the social context, so that the organizational process continues to be shaped by the conflicting and asymmetrical gender relationships that prevail in Indian society. This leads to the imposition of a dual burden (of work and home commitments) on working women. Based on a survey of women workers in Calcutta’s IT sector, this paper agues that contextual developments have weakened the patriarchal foundations of the family. This has allowed women workers to break out of a passive mould and attempt to carve out their individual destinies. However, organizational constraints and the family structure impose structural constraints on their agency, so that women workers have to adapt their aspirations to contextual realities. Decision-making of working women may, in this emerging situation, be conceptualized in terms of Simon’s satisficing model.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Women’s agency; Gender; Information Technology; Calcutta; Satisficing
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination

References

Agarwal, B. (1994). A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, Cambridge: New Delhi.

Badgett, M., Lee, V. and Folbre, N. (2001). Gender Norms and Economic Outcomes. In M.F. Loutfi (Ed.) Women, Gender and Work: What is equality, and how do we get there? (pp. 327-341). Geneva: ILO.

Bates, I. and Riseborough, G. (1993). Introduction: Deepening divisions, fading solutions. In Bates, I. and Riseborough, G. (Ed) Youth and Inequality (pp. 1-3). Buckimham: Open University Press.

Ben, Esther Ruiz (2007) Defining Expertise in Software Development While Doing Gender, Gender, Work and Organization, 14(4), 312-332.

Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.

Bruegel, I. (1996). Whose myths are they anyway?: A commen’, British Journal of Sociology, 47(1), 175-177

Buchmann, M. (1989). The Script of Life in Modern Society. London: University of Chicago Press.

Centre for Organization Development (2004). Final Report on Women in Information Technology. Report submitted to Department of Women & Child, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, Hyderabad.

Chisholm, L. and Bois-Reymond, M. Du (1993). Youth transitions, gender and social change, Sociology, 27(2), 259-279.

Clarke, A. and Sekher, T.V. (2007). Can Career-minded Young Women Reverse Gender Discrimination? A View from Bangalore’s High Tech Sector, Gender, Technology and Development, 11(3), 285-319.

Crump, B.J., Logan, K.A. and McIlroy, A. (2007). Does Gender Still Matter? A Study of the Views of Women in the ICT Industry in New Zealand, Gender, Work and Organization, 14(4), 349-370.

Ferguson, A. (1989). Blood at the Root: Motherhood, Sexuality and Male Dominance. London: Pandora Press.

Folbre, N. and Weisskopf, T.E. (1998). Did Father know best? Families, markets and the supply of caring labor. In

Ben-Ner, A. and Putterman, L. (Ed.) Economics, values and organization (pp. 171-205). Cambridge: New York.

Ginn, J., Arber, S., Brannen, J., Dale, A., Dex, S., Elias, P., Moss, P., Pahl, J., Roberts, C. and Rubery, J. (1996). Feminist fallacies: a reply to Hakim on women's employment, British Journal of Sociology, 47(1), 167-173.

Hakim, C. (1991). Grateful slaves and self made women: Fact and fantasy in women’s work orientation, European Sociological Review, 7(2), 101-121.

Hakim, C. (1995). Five feminist myths about women’s employment, British Journal of Sociology, 46(3), 429-455.

Hakim, C. (1996a). The sexual division of labor and women’s heterogeneity, British Journal of Sociology, 47(1), 178-188.

Hakim, C. (1996b). Key Isssues in Women’s Work: Female Heterogeneity and hte Polarization of Women’s Employment, London: Athlone.

Kelkar, G., and Nathan, D. (2002). Gender Relations and Technological Change in Asia, Current Sociology, 50(3), 427-441.

Kelkar, G., Shreshtha, G., and Veena, N. (2002). IT Industry and Women’s Agency, Gender, Technology and Development, 6(1), 63-84.

Krishna, A. and Brihmadesam, V. (2006). What does it take to be a Software Professional?, Economic and Political Weekly, 19 July, 3307-3314.

Lee, J.C. (2004). Access, Self-Image and Empowerment: Computer Training for Women Entrepreneurs in Costa Rica, Gender Technology and Development, 6(1), 63-84.

Mitter, S. and Rowbotham, S. (Ed.) (1995). Women encounter technology: changing patterns of employment in the Third World. Routledge: New York.

NASSCOM and Deloitte (2008). Indian IT/ITES Industry: Impacting Indian Economy and Society 2007-08,. NASSCOM, New Delhi.

Noronha, E. and D’Cruz, P. (2008). The Dynamics of Teleworking, Gender, Technology and Development, 12(2), 157-183.

Proctor, I. and Padefield, M. (1998). Young Adult Women, Work and Family: Living a contradiction. London: Mansell.

Ramsey, N. and McCorduck, P. (2005). Where are the Women in Information Technology? Report prepared by Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology for National Center for & Information Technology, Un. of Colarado, Boulder.

Roberts, K. (1993). Career trajectories and the mirage of increased social mobility. In Bates, I. & Riseborough, G. (Ed) Youth and Inequality (pp.229-245). Buckimham: Open University Press.

Rothboeck, S., Vijaybhaskar, M. and Gayatri, V. (2001). Labor in the Indian Economy: The Case of the Indian Software Labor Market. ILO: New Delhi.

Sen, A.K. (1983). Economic and the Family, Asian Development Review, 1, 14-26.

Sen, A.K. (1993) ‘Economics and the Family’, in P. Uberoi (Ed.) Family, Kinship and Marriage in India (pp. 452-463). Oxford University Press: New Delhi.

Shanker, D. (2008). Gender relations in IT Companies, Gender, Technology and Development, 12(2), 185-202.

Simon, H.A. (1955). A Behavioural Model of Rational Choice, Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXIX(1), 99-118.

Upadhya, C. (2005). Gender Issues in the Indian Software Outsourcing Industry. In Gurumurthy, A., Singh, P.J., Mundkur, A. and Swamy, M. (Ed.) Gender in the Information Society: Emerging Issues (pp. 74-84). UNDP-AIDP & Elsevier: New Delhi.

Upadhya, C. (2007). Employment, Exclusion and ‘Merit’ in the Indian IT Industry, Economic & Political Weekly, 19 May, 1863-1868.

Wajcman, J. and Lobb, Le Anh Pham (2007). The Gender Relations of Software Work in Vietnam, Gender, Technology and Development, 11(1), 1-26.