IIM Women Intake Drops Down by 4% in 5 Years
- The number of female students at IIMs has dropped in the last five years even though the total number of seats has increased.
- Gender diversity is one of the challenges that IIMs are facing and trying to resolve.
According to the admission details and intake records of the Indian Institutes of Management, total number of women enrolled across all the IIMs for the flagship PGP course has dropped by 4% in the last 5 years. Number of male students at IIMs has always been high considering that most of the students who clear CAT for admission in the institutes are engineers.
Women intake at IIMs in 2013-15 was 31.7% that dropped down to 27.5% for the academic year 2017-19. Although the reason behind the drop is not clear, there are enough reports and data that the overall number of girl students at IIMs has decreased over the years. The drop in female intake has been recorded despite the fact that new IIMs have been started and more seats have been added. The total number of seats in the 13 IIMs till 2013 was 3394 that increased to 4399 for 20 IIMs.
Year-wise Total Women Intake of IIMs:
Year | Intake Percentage | Number of Girls Enrolled |
2013-15 | 31.7% | 1077 |
2014-16 | 28.1% | 958 |
2015-17 | 23.3% | 881 |
2016-18 | 25.4% | 1061 |
2017-19 | 27.5% | 1211 |
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Institute-wise Women Intake at Old IIMs:
Name of the Institute | Points for Gender Diversity | Range of Female Intake |
Not Awarded | 35% in 2014 to 18% in 2015 | |
Awarded | 25% average | |
Awarded | 16.4% in 2016 to 30.9% in 2017 | |
Awarded | Over 30% throughout except in 2015 | |
Awarded | 30% in 2014 to over 40% in 2017 | |
Awarded | Almost 50% in 2013 to 28.9 in 2017 |
Although the gender diversity at IIM Ahmedabad’s PGP programme has dropped, the ratio of female to male students for the IIM-A FPM class of 2018 was 50:50 as compared to 25:75 for the class of 2017. Few old IIMs have improved their female intake after replacing CAT as the only selection criteria and incorporating diversity points. The same has not worked for some of the new IIMs.
On the other hand, new IIMs have a long way to go in terms of gender diversity. The institutes established in 2010, i.e. IIM Shillong, IIM Rohtak, IIM Ranchi, IIM Raipur, IIM Tiruchirapalli, IIM Kashipur and IIM Udaipur have recorded a drop in female student intake from 25% in 2013 to 20% in 2017.
There have been exceptions to the rule such as IIM Ranchi, which recorded a female intake of more than 50% in the past 5 years. Whereas, IIM Rohtak took a nose dive from 48.3% female students in 2013 to less than 10% in 2017.
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The premier management institutes, AICTE as well as HRD Ministry are encouraging more female participation in management to bring out better leaders. Therefore, various steps have been taken to improve the number of female students in IIMs.