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During my several job tenures in abroad I have observed this very closely that middle class Indian women are always underpaid.Trust me,if I say that they are even paid less than their counter part country women like Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or Pakistan even.
And yes,to be very clear to you, the whole blame goes to Indian women only.There are several reasons for it which makes all this happens to them. With little care and attention to the details they can also benefit by the upmarket salaries but it seems they hardly care about these kind of points.
We are not discussing the top notch women in Directors or CEOs post here in this post.We are pointing out a finger on those who are actually trying to survive in very less paid jobs in Middle East or USA or UK and several other countries.
Let me jolt down few of these basic essentials which are less found in Indian women working abroad.
1- Foreign language – We always take foreign languages as big Hauuaaaah.Only metro city girls care about enrolling and learning French, Arabic, Spanish or German languages.For small cities girls it is a big taboo to learn at least one foreign language and to be fluent in it too. They feel WHAT WILL I DO? And after getting into engineering courses or in management courses they often land up in abroad for internship or job training.
2- English fluency – Still, now a days all those girls who come from small or metro cities even are not perfect in English speaking.They are widely abused or humiliated or joked upon even trying to speak it at speaking it home. Usual dialogue from less educated family members is “see she is tying to be Angrej(Britisher)”. But yes lot many feel dedicated and learn it from small coaching centers and they really work hard to reach the levels of speaking it fluently. Even in Metro cities professionally girls are not able to speak fluent English.
3- Less Confidence – You going for office alone or with somebody or coming back home with somebody is a big issue. Initial tantrums of society around makes Indian girls so complexed that they are not ready for being open minded for several situations in foreign countries.During job interviews maximum times they get hitched by interviewer’s perfumes or skirts or high heels even.One of my colleague told me that she was about to faint in interview because she never smelled such a great perfume in all her life.Indian women/girls are bullied and humiliated a lot if they belong to small cities of India.Education,career, marriage talks and if they are married and re shifted to abroad than they must be doing loads of house chores too along with facing husband’s tantrums too.So lot many times foreign recruiters find themselves in front of a Indian women who is thinking 20,000 things in a second while giving interview.They are less focused about negotiating the salaries they actually deserve.
4- Personality matters – Indian girls in majority actually start using makeup as lip liner, lip color, eye kohl or hair color only.They are way far behind using foundation, primer, highlighters or perfumes.Yes once they are taught good things they reach great levels but still they do not believe in spending very high on it. They believe more in Punjabi suits, kurtis with leggings more rather than wearing business suits or silk pants with scarves. They prefer daily washed clothes.You can see them wearing 7-8 Punjabi suits for 5 years continuously if they are married. There is a reason for it.If they are middle class and unmarried they are saving for marriage and if they are middle class and married than they need to send money back home too. So when they appear for interviews they carry great educational and professional certificates but still they land up in receptionist or admin jobs because they are more focused on having job first.
5- Family pressures – Lot many Indian women get immense pressure from family to do a job to earn extra bucks. So that their salary can run the house and they can save a big chunk for future. Husbands convince them that if they are getting 100000 Indian Rupees (converted) here in abroad that means they are earning more than their managers in India.This makes them more exploited by recruiters in the job interviews. So just imagine a shabbily dressed candidate with great qualifications is ready to work in less (1/4) salary is easy catch for company indeed.
6- No to work pressure – They are not ready to stay back or go home late.They have to cook, clean and do 100 chores at home with several times unwanted relatives visiting them and waiting at home to roam in abroad at free expenses without giving a singe thought that how much she must be tired now.On the other hand other nationality women are ready to take work load, stay back and holding overnight video conferences with different time zone clients.They win the highest pay packet too for being more dedicated and less stressed.
7- Miserable habits – We will earn good but we will not hire a full time nanny to take care of kids and home.Relatives create problems and less interested in helping too.If you see other nationality families, relatives happily move in to take care of family and get paid too.But in India people are ready to travel for free and roam foreign land on free expenses with loads of shopping but they are not ready to extend a genuine helping hand to the family.They feel ‘Why should I care?”.This is a major drawback for a women who is less appreciated and under immense pressure of working at home and office, for being able to take up more responsibilities at work place.HR and Management always notice this and therefore for several years not a single salary raise happens.
8- My village people – Yes the basic reason is feeling comfortable and happy in a less paid job because lot of same language people are around.Daily chats and home sufferings sharing makes them more comfortable in the seat they get at first and therefore they are not ready to upgrade themselves at any given cost. No personality development course, no online courses or not even few good formal dresses.They take the job as their destiny.Everything and every planning revolves around what they are going to do with their savings only.Just all this drawback for a professionally qualified married women because people around her speak the same language.They compromise for the relaxed atmosphere and easily get mentally adoptive for most humble salaries. Can you believe it?
9- Driving skills – Yes Indian women loose several attractive sales jobs with high incentives because they hardly encouraged in their family to learn the driving skills being girl or a married women. They are not ready to move out of the office for the day because either they are dependent on taxi or husband’s pick an drop.They are not allowed to buy a car or even get a driving license by husbands.Yes I agree safety issues are there indeed but still driving is one of the most needed skill for emergency being in abroad.But 90% Indian middle class males feel that driving skill will make wife less dependent and more open in future.Being dominating males they avoid it at all cost and Indian women loose several opportunities to higher salaries.Here is the turning point that western countries or other nationalities women walk away with that attractive job.
10- Complexed personalities – We are not talking about creme de la creme layer of India which belongs to fashion industries, high class politician or IAS lobby kids or business class women at all. We are talking about those women who shift to abroad after completing their first professional degree or after getting married to a boy working in Gulf or other countries. Several middle class girls after completing masters or great degrees get married to those boys who are getting lucrative salaries because their parents spent a good fortune in dowry or girl is extreme beautiful or can speak little English.So now these girls are out in market for WHATEVER YOU CAN GET kind of jobs and with loads of hyper complexes of being in abroad, seeing flights first time and even watching a multinational person for the first time.
So to be less explanation of these are the main reasons you can see a well educated person in small job as counter sales girls in gulf countries or less educated women supplying home made food around. They are less paid and care less to jump high too salary wise. And somehow HR recruiters understand this theory so well too. So this is a main reason Indian women are lot many time get exploited by companies and schools too.They show the recruiters “I am needy,hire me for 10% only instead of 100%”.
Happy life!
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