About 5 years back top business schools in India suddenly woke up to the fact that the gender diversity ratio in their graduating batches was quite poor. It was extremely rare to find more than 25% women in most of the top IIMs. However, things have taken a turn for the better and the number of women graduating not just from IIMs but schools across the board now is in thousands. While women representation in C-Suite and pay disparity at the top levels are issues which will still take many more years to be solved, we can celebrate the increase in number of women managers at the entry level in India. We should be hopeful and the IIMs and other top schools have done their bit.
A lot of this change can also be attributed to the demand made by recruiters - recruiters want a diverse mix in the workplace and India's business schools have been quite sensitive to their demands. Almost every top school in India awards a few extra marks today to women on account of their gender to try and make their admission easier to the new batch.
We at InsideIIM believe that the gender diversity ratio will only improve in the coming years.
Let us look at data for the Class of 2019. This report looks at about 25 schools that have shared data with us. (If your b-school has a higher ratio but still hasn't featured in this list, it is not because we don't like your school it is because data wasn’t shared with us. Please feel free to add your batch's details below in the comments section and we will make changes after verification.)
Size matters. It is far tougher to maintain a good gender ratio if you have a batch of 500 plus as opposed to having a batch of 75 or even 150. For the longest time, it was difficult to get enough women in the pool to be considered from when admitting students. A lot has changed over the last 5 years. A slightly liberal admission criteria has worked wonders in ensuring a more gender diverse batch in some of India's top schools.
One interesting trend we see below is that across all sizes of batches, it is the schools in West of India that come across as most gender diverse - Mumbai, Pune, Indore(debatable if can be counted as part of West), Ahmedabad. This needs to be examined further but is it possible that women candidates feel safer in West India and hence choose schools from West India? Or is it just a co-incidence that some of India's better schools are based in West India and they also have a good diversity ratio.
Gender Diversity Ratio at B-Schools with a batch of more than 300 Students – Class of 2019
| Business School | Program | Batch Size | Total Number of Women | % of Women |
| K J Somaiya Mumbai | PGDM | 360 | 148 | 41.11% |
| IIM Indore | PGP + IPM (students entering final two years of IPM) | 545 | 215 | 39.45% |
| IMT Ghaziabad | PGDM | 543 | 181 | 33.33% |
| NMIMS Mumbai | Core + HR | 697 | 227 | 32.57% |
| IIM Calcutta | PGP | 460 | 144 | 31.30% |
| IIM Ahmedabad | PGP + ABM | 441 | 134 | 30.39% |
| IIM Lucknow | PGP | 462 | 139 | 30.09% |
| IIM Kozhikode | PGP | 374 | 108 | 28.88% |
| IIM Bangalore | PGP | 405 | 114 | 28.15% |
| XLRI Jamshedpur | BM + HR | 364 | 100 | 27.47% |
IIM Indore will send over 230 women (when you include the Mumbai campus) managers to the industry in 2019. Over the last 3 years it sends the highest number of women in absolute numbers but what is impressive is that even at a batch size of over 600 the percentage of women is hitting 40% quite consistently now. With the introduction of new PGP in HR programme from the next year (Class of 2018-20), the number will only get a boost. Although IIM Kozhikode and IIM Lucknow were the first initiators of extra marks for women to get interview calls, IIM Indore seems to have stolen the march over the last 2-3 years when it comes to gender diversity. Older IIMs are now consistently beating global MBA gender ratio figures. To be fair though, it is because the average age of MBA students in India is much lower. It won't be unfair to compare the IIM PGDM programme to Msc. in Management programmes in Europe.
(2016 B-School Gender Diversity Report)
How have they made it happen?
- Extra marks to women applicants at the interview shortlisting stage
- Relatively low or no weight to work experience in the shortlisting/final admission stage
- High weight to past academic record
We are reporting K J Somaiya's stats for the first time and as a % of the batch it has the best ratio among schools with over 300 students in a batch. In a batch of 360 students having 41% women is quite impressive overall.
As compared to last year (Class of 2018), XLRI Jamshedpur has seen a massive drop - 37% is now just 27%. Although 27% is not a poor figure by any stretch of imagination, it is still an unusual drop.
IMT Ghaziabad has 1/3rd of the batch as women on campus - generally a threshold everyone aspires to reach.
It is also worth noting that NMIMS Mumbai with a batch of almost 700 students has managed to keep the percentage of women on campus above 30%. NMIMS will send 227 women to Corporate India in 2019. This is despite the fact that they do not award any additional points for being a female. This could be because the cutoff for NMAT is quite reasonable and NMIMS puts a decent weightage on Academics, Personal Interview, and Case Discussions.
This is what an IIM Indore Student has to say about her campus and the gender ratio - The healthy gender ratio at IIM Indore prepares us better for fair corporate lives. It rightly teaches us how leadership is not gender biased. If you deserve it and you can earn it, be it a man or a woman, it will take you to the places you deserve. - Sonali Singh, Student, PGP 1.
IIM Ahmedabad without resorting to gender based marks allocation has managed to cross 30% which is noteworthy. IIM Calcutta and IIM Lucknow also have over 30% of the batch as women - both schools allot extra marks to women applicants. IIM Kozhikode seems to have over compensated in the recent years and the gender ratio which in one particular year touched almost 50 has now come down to 29% which is still very respectable.
Gender Diversity Ratio at Top B-Schools with a batch of less than 300 Students but more than 150 – Class of 2019
| Business School | Program | Batch Size | Total Number of Women | % of Women |
| MICA Ahmedabad | PGDM - C | 180 | 84 | 46.67% |
| SCMHRD Pune | MBA - General | 227 | 94 | 41.41% |
| SPJIMR Mumbai | PGDM | 242 | 100 | 41.32% |
| IFIM Bangalore | PGDM | 280 | 112 | 40.00% |
| IIM Ranchi | PGP | 247 | 88 | 35.63% |
| IIFT Delhi | MBA - IB | 167 | 54 | 32.34% |
| IIM Udaipur | PGP | 233 | 55 | 23.61% |
| FMS Delhi | MBA Full Time | 217 | 41 | 18.89% |
| IIM Trichy | PGPM | 179 | 24 | 13.41% |
| IIM Shillong | PGP | 178 | 22 | 12.36% |
| IIM Rohtak | PGP | 262 | 25 | 9.54% |
For years now, MICA has been India's most Gender Diverse school when we look at smaller batches. There have been some years that the number of women have been more than the number of men in the batch! Read more about this here.
SCMHRD has over 41% women in its batch of 227.
SPJIMR, also a private business school, has an impressive number of women on campus. It is one of the b-schools that not only values gender diversity while selecting candidates but gives a heavy weight to the profile of the person. This has definitely helped them attract quality pool of candidates and recruiters.
Admission teams at IIM Rohtak, Trichy, Shillong seem to have a lot of work ahead to manage more respectable gender diversity ratios.
Gender Diversity Ratio at Top B-Schools with a batch of less than 150 – Class of 2019
| Business School | Program | Batch Size | Total Number of Women | % of Women |
| SJMSoM - IIT Bombay | MMP | 113 | 52 | 46.02% |
| IIM Indore Mumbai Campus | PGP | 73 | 29 | 39.73% |
| IMI Kolkata | PGDM | 126 | 50 | 39.68% |
| MISB Bocconi Mumbai | PGPB | 84 | 32 | 38.10% |
| TISS Mumbai | HRM+LR | 67 | 22 | 32.84% |
| IIM Sirmaur | PGP | 66 | 15 | 22.73% |
| IIM Vizag | PGP | 60 | 13 | 21.67% |
| JBIMS Mumbai | MMS | 139 | 17 | 12.23% |
| IIM Jammu | PGP | 67 | 16 | 23.88% |
SJMSoM at IIT Bombay has achieved 46% of women candidates in its flagship Masters of Management programme batch by a tweak in its admission criteria last year which favours women candidates.
One surprising entry and improvement in this list is that of IIM Sirmaur. For the Class of 2018, there was only 1 woman in the batch of 35 students. From that to 22% of women this year, it's quite an impressive jump. Read more about the only girl on campus, here.
FMS Delhi Shortlisting Criteria is predominantly based on the CAT score. Even though they award 3 marks to a female candidate, the impact has been limited. The needle has moved from 15% to 19%. Read about FMS Selection Criteria for the coming year, here.
MISB Bocconi had an increase in the number of women students applying and as a result of that, has an increase in the number of women on campus as well. MISB Bocconi has a special Scholarship - Woman in Leadership Scholarship which may have had an impact. You can check out the video about the scholarship over here.
Schools with lesser than 150 students in a batch ought to have better diversity ratios since it should be easier to ensure a lower absolute number of women who take admission. In that context, JBIMS needs to seriously take this issue seriously.
(Updates - SCMHRD's stats were added at 1 pm on 16th Oct. SJMSoM stats were added at 3 pm on 16th Oct. IMI Kolkata data added at 4.30 pm on 16th Oct.)
To check out the Gender Diversity Article last year, please click here.
To read more about articles on Women in IIMs, please click here.
(If your b-school has a higher ratio but still hasn't featured in this list, it is possible that data wasn’t shared with us)
In case you want your b-school to be featured on this list, please send the required stats to Nidhi at nidhi.malkan@insideiim.com
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