Originally published in The Economic Times

Only three out 10 women excel in decision making and creative thinking as compared to seven out of 10 men, and this is not the same in the initial years, finds a survey by SCIKEY, a marketplace network for talent and technology solutions.

The ‘Women in the IT sector in India’ survey, which has responses from 5,388 IT professionals across India from 22 to 47 years of age, shows that 60% women and 40% men possess high decision making and creative thinking in the beginning of their careers, but the tables get reversed as they climb the corporate ladder.

The figures change to 30% women as compared to 70% men and this major change of events can only be attributed to the rapid decline of senior women in roles of authority in the workforce.

The data further reveals that 2.7% women aspire for executive roles and 1% women, having the requisite skills, can be groomed for the same. Women proved to be almost at par with men, in terms of capabilities, to handle data driven roles (1.6% women and 1.71% men), design and creative thinking roles (3.41% of each) and technical roles (2.19% women and 2.41% women). The research findings also indicated that female IT professionals avoid risk almost half as much as their male counterparts. The percentage of females indulging in risk taking is 6.61% as compared to 10.47% men.

“While the glass ceiling has been cracked, we must all put efforts including individuals and corporates for this glass ceiling to be broken once and for all. The major gender disparity in the workplace should be addressed and bridged. Every organisation must strive to include more and more women and bridge the skill gap in the workspace so that a parity can be achieved,” Karunjit Dhir, co-founder, SCIKEY, told ET.