ABSTRACT
250India is an important country in the world due to its sheer size in terms of population and geographical territory and also being a key member country of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) group. India’s education sector with 1.4 million schools and more than 35,000 higher education institutions is considered as one of the largest higher education systems in the world (IBEF, 2015). Indian women have found the education sector as an avenue of employment and the sector employed 3.8% of Indian women in 2012 (Lahiri, 2012). The growth potential of this sector is enormous as the gross enrolment ration in higher education stood at 20.4% only (All India Survey on Higher Education, 2013). Consequently in the decades to come, this sector will remain an attractive employment sector for Indian women.
This chapter focuses in general on the factors that makes education sector attractive for Indian women to find employment and in particular on work–life balance (WLB) as a key factor. WLB describes “the relationship between your work and the commitments in the rest of your life, and how they impact on one another” (Government of South Australia, 2012). The chapter takes into account the insights given by women teachers both at the school and university levels during focus group discussions. Further analysis is carried out to find out whether WLB is a key factor or are there other factors that influence women to take up teaching.
