Does Gender Matter in Employment With Special Reference to Managerial Positions in the Licensed Private Commercial Banks in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lankan women participation can be seen in every sphere of the country invarying degrees. However, in certain circumstances, it is likely to perceive that, avariety of constraints would hinder the women involvement and discriminate her in thesociety. Thus, the study mainly attempted to assert whether there is such kind ofconviction, which creates constraints for women to attain managerial positions in theprivate sector with special reference to Licensed Private Commercial banks in SriLanka.

Accordingly, the study is focused to identify the perception of selectedorganizations on women participation in managerial positions as well as to find outwhether there is gender inequality in the composition of Managerial positions inselected organizations.

In the study both the quantitative and qualitative approaches were used in orderto satisfy objectives of the study. Accordingly, 30 employees from 9 private commercialbanks including 8 domestic banks and 1 foreign bank which are located in the Colombocity were selected as the sample of the research by considering the convenience for datacollection and accessibility. Questionnaires were used as the main method for primarydata collection. Secondary data were gathered through published and unpublishedsources. In order to make quantitative and diagrammatical base for data analysis,Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 16.0) and Microsoft Office Excel 2007were used.

The results revealed that, very limited female participation could be found in topmanagerial positions in the selected banks. Further, huge household responsibilities andlong office working hours, would lead working women to struggle in striking a balancebetween personal and work life, especially married women and females in extendedfamilies. When considering the context of working environment, discrimination could be observed in terms of salary and opportunities for career enhancement. Also in theorganizational perspectives, male employees are more likely to be positively perceivedby the banks rather than female employees.

In conclusion, study reveals that the female employees in the private banks aremore likely to be kept in middle level positions whilst top positions are held by maleemployees, showcasing the gender inequality in the selected banks.

Key words: Gender, Employment, Managerial positions, Licensed private commercialbanks