Can Career-Minded Young Women Reverse Gender Discrimination?

Abstract

A Partial reversal of the culture of female devaluation is currently emerging among young women from the urban middle class employed in India’s high-tech sector. India has a very large middle class – estimated as more than 200 million – making it a significant and crucial segment that can act as a harbinger for social change. Studies on employment in the IT sector in India have not adequately considered the important social impacts of this new development on the culture of daughter devaluation. There are far-reaching implications for gender equality and social change when young women find opportunities to improve their financial autonomy, mobility and social acceptance in a male dominated society. In the urban middle class, as part of this transition, the old concept of ‘male breadwinner’ is slowly giving way to ‘gender equity model’ of family. The "demonstration effect" may have wider socio-cultural implications, at least for upgrading the image of daughters in the minds of their parents.