More Chinese Girls take GMAT than Indian Girls

Chinese women school India in doing business

Hemali Chhapia, TNN | Mar 21, 2011, 12.41am IST

MUMBAI: In most management colleges in India, the number of boys nearly always overshadows the strength of girls. Similar is the case in the global entrance exam GMAT, which sees a small percentage of Indian women trying their luck. 

The skewed trend has put India behind China in another sphere, as more and more Chinese women are taking the GMAT and breaking the glass ceiling by making it to top B-schools of the world. While women made up just 24% of the total Indian GMAT takers in 2010, they formed 63% of the aspirants in China.
In India, the scenario hasn't changed much in the last five years. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, the agency that conducts GMAT, 77% men and 23% women from India took the management test in 2006. Four years later, the ratio stood at 76% men and 24% women. In real numbers too, Indian women appearing for the test declined. 

In China, on the other hand, the trend has been very different. The number of men applying for the GMAT has risen but not as much as women's. 

Thanks to Chinese women, the management test is witnessing a correction of gender imbalance. There were 1 lakh female test takers in 2009. The next year, 1,05,900 women represented 40.1% of all tests takers. "Driving much of that growth was China, as nearly 63 per cent of GMAT exam takers in China were women," noted GMAC. 

"One possible reason why there are so many Chinese women taking the GMAT exam is that there is a growing interest in accounting programs," said Michelle Sparkman Renz, GMAC director of research communications. 

David A Wilson, president and chief executive officer of GMAC, said: "Education, and business education in particular, offers women in China their best chance to become upwardly mobile. So, we're seeing more and more women considering business school as an option and taking the GMAT to facilitate this." 

Another plausible cause for fewer Indian girls signing up for master's program could be the low percentage of their enrolment in universities and professional courses. 

Rahul Choudaha, a New York-based higher education trend watcher, said: "In addition to general factors influencing GMAT test takers, Indian women face socio-cultural pressures of early marriage and family. Foreign MBA programs require work experience, which makes it even more difficult for women with family to get support for investing time and money in foreign MBA."