Women In The Civil Services

This new book is the result of an international research project that spanned nearly a decade. Authors from a half-dozen countries discuss women's roles in public administration in the context of their overall participation in the labor force. Women and Public Administration presents some astounding results derived from the authors’research into a particular country's government, politics, and the role of women in that country. The authors, women born and currently living in India, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, and the United States, discuss four main topics: the number and level of female civil servants in the highest ranks of at least two bureaucracies, one concerned with traditionally female roles and one concerned with traditionally male roles; the career histories of these women; an institutional description of women in public bureaucracies; and the perceptions of women in public administration concerning discrimination and equality policies. This important book also describes historical, demographic, economic, and governmental information and women's views of barriers, access to training and advancement, and the general social climate for women employees at various levels within the bureaucracies. Researchers, aware of cultural and language differences and the dangers of imposing a Western model on non-Western cultures, used questionnaires and interviews to obtain much of the information for this study. Each country has its own unique story involving history, the structure of the labor market, the organization of government, and the socialization patterns of the culture, as well as the current patterns of interaction between men and women and current public policies affecting these matters. Women and Public Administration contains much valuable information for everyone interested in women's roles in bureaucracies around the world.

This edited volume examines policies aimed at increasing the representation of women in governing institutions in six South Asian countries. Divided into three parts, it addresses the implications of uniformity and diversity for the substantive representation of women in parliament, civil service and local government. The contributing authors explore the scope and limits of ‘positive discriminatory policies’ within distinct country contexts, and the implications of the lack of such policies in other countries. Their findings shed new light on the extent to which the higher presence of women in different governing institutions matters, particularly in respect of promoting women’s issues; and also on the way men and women in different governing institutions look upon each other’s roles and adopt strategies for mutual adjustment. This innovative collection will appeal to students and scholars of gender studies, public policy and administration, international relations, law and political science.

This book explores the personal and professional lives of women in the Indian Civil Services and analyses the dynamics of gender and workplace identities for women in government. Based on first-hand interviews of women civil servants at various levels and ages, this book presents a narrative of their work conditions, the degrees of authority they exercise and their perceptions of themselves – in relation to their children, husbands, family, male and female colleagues, politicians and the public at large. It addresses pertinent issues like work–family balance, workforce diversity, equal employment opportunity, sexual harassment at the workplace, among others. Through this research, the author addresses questions such as, do women in public administration think differently from their male colleagues? And do they exercise different leadership styles, prioritise different issues, approach problems differently, make decisions in markedly different ways and play an actively representative role? This book helps to identify major obstacles that hinder the participation of women in decision-making and uncovers the bottlenecks that impede women’s advancement in the civil services specifically to policymaking positions. An important and timely study, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of gender studies, public administration, management and leadership studies. It will also be of interest to organisations working on issues of equal opportunity and affirmative action in public institutions.