Real Men Don't Need Work Life Balance

By Tanvi Gautam, Ph.D.

To all you women you think you don’t have a choice, it is really us men who don’t have a choice. I have to go out and make sure I earn a living and provide the security for my family. There is no flexibility!!

This outburst of sorts came from a middle-aged executive attending my talk on work-life integration and gender roles. His comment was followed by silence – the women exchanged puzzled looks and the men nodded in appreciation. For me, the pause represented a moment of hard truth. The truth of the disadvantage faced by males in the work-life fit discussion. Yes, I did just use the words “male” and “disadvantage” in the same sentence.  Let me clarify.

The unfortunate secret is that: when it comes to the work-life balance and career flexibility discussions, there is an “unwritten hierarchy” of rights in most firms. And men, I’m afraid, are just not on the priority list. Chances at career flexibility are much higher if you are a woman with kids. The assumption remains that “real” men (single or married) don’t need/want work-life integration. They work long, hard hours and miss meals with family, skip social events, so they can rise to the top of the corporate ladder, if need be at the expense of all else.The 21st century workforce continues to be managed often with an 18th century mindset. For instance, face time is still considered an indicator of work commitment; and breaks in careers (for whatever reason) are seen as a form of career suicide. Many managers continue to treat workers as a pair of hands, rather than a whole human being who faces demands from life outside work too  (thank you, Peter Drucker: father of modern management, for that idea!). Also, the lines between work and home are increasingly blurring, as the smartphone vibrates at any hour and demands an almost unhealthy level of responsiveness to work. Under the circumstances, men and women both face tremendous pressures in managing work and life outside it. However, when it comes to men, there is a dark secret that most organizations may not confess to.

Breakdown of the traditional male worker prototype

This uni-dimensional prototype of the working male mentioned above worked perfectly well in the pre-industrial society where men worked and women were at home. However, as more women enter the workforce and invest in higher education (see infographic) dual career couples are fast becoming the norm. Therefore, women demand a more active role from men in at home as they pursue their career aspirations.

Their gender and associated role definitions, prevents men from being a part of the work life integration agenda at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. This is male disadvantage. The fall out of this disadvantage is not just for the men themselves (in the form of burnout and in the extreme case death due to “overwork” i.e. Karoshi in Japan), but also for the lives of those around them. It is in the form of the physical and emotional absenteeism from the lives of the children, which in turn impacts the social and academic skills of the children. It is also in the form of lower fertility rates in countries like Singapore where having kids is being seen as a career cost by women who don’t have any support from their spouses or work environment

Why Gender Diversity at the Top Remains a Challenge

McKinsey’s survey of global executives finds that corporate culture and a lack of convinced engagement by male executives are critical problems for women.

In a 1976 McKinsey Quarterly article, the firm’s Jim Bennett noted that companies taking an honest look at how they handled the advancement of women were likely to uncover a number of “thorny attitude-based problems” that “will take much longer and prove much more difficult to solve” than “sex-based differences in benefits plans and obviously biased employment literature.” Our latest gender-diversity research — a survey of 1,421 global executives — suggests that cultural factors continue to play a central role in achieving (or missing) diversity goals. That underscores just how long lived and challenging the issues flagged by Bennett are.

Women executives are ambitious and, like men, say they are ready to make some sacrifices in their personal lives if that’s what it takes to occupy a top-management job. Many, however, are not sure that the corporate culture will support their rise, apparently with some justification. Although a majority of organizations we studied have tried to implement measures aimed at increasing gender diversity among senior executives, few have achieved notable improvements.

Among the elements factoring into failure or success, we found that corporate culture was the key. In particular, our 2013 survey strongly suggests that prevailing leadership styles among top managers and performance models stressing that executives make themselves available 24/7 can be important barriers to women’s advancement. Another issue is the divergence of views between men and women executives, from middle management to the C-suite, on the difficulties women face in advancing. That problem is paired with lingering doubts among men about the value of diversity programs, particularly among men who are less familiar with the range of forces influencing women’s career trajectories. CEOs seeking to design diversity programs that truly bring about change must take account of these factors.

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Cultural Factors That Limit Progress

Women respondents say that they aim just as high as their male peers do. Seventy-nine percent of all mid- or senior-level women want to reach top management, compared with 81 percent of men. Senior women executives just one step away from the C-suite are more likely to agree strongly that they have top-management ambitions.

Yet our survey also shows that many are less certain they will reach the top: 69 percent of senior women say they are confident they’ll reach the C-suite, as opposed to 86 percent of their male peers. We compared women who feel confident that they can rise with those who are less confident and analyzed their answers about personal and collective factors that can support or inhibit career success. We found that a favorable environment and cultural factors weighed twice as heavily as individual factors in determining how confident women felt about reaching top management.

Women who are more confident of their ability to rise tend to say that the leadership styles of their companies are compatible with women’s leadership and communication styles, and that women are just as likely as men to reach the top there. Consistently, the absence of diversity in leadership styles was a challenge for many women: almost 40 percent of female respondents said that women’s leadership and communication styles don’t fit with the prevailing model of top management in their companies.

Performance models for work–life balance issues also tilt against women. Most men and women agree that a top-level career implies “anytime, anywhere” availability to work and that this imposes a particularly severe penalty on female managers. When asked whether having children is compatible with a top-level career for women, 62 percent of all respondents agree — but a much larger share (80 percent) think that’s true for men.

Male Perceptions

A significant cultural factor affecting women’s ability to reach top management is the engagement and support of men. While about three-quarters of men believe that teams with significant numbers of women perform more successfully, fewer recognize the challenges women face. Only 19 percent strongly agree that reaching top management is harder for women, and men are much more likely to reject the idea that the climb is steeper for women. We also found that men are less likely than women to see value in diversity initiatives and more likely to believe that too many measures supporting women are unfair to men. Finally, while nearly all male and female executives express some level of agreement that women can lead as effectively as men do, male respondents are not as strongly convinced.

These are among the reasons that year after year, and again in 2013, women remain underrepresented at the top of corporations, across all industries and countries. Those disappointing results persist despite a body of research suggesting that companies with more women in top management tend to perform better, both organizationally and financially, and despite decades of effort by many companies. The upshot is that there’s still room for firmer engagement among male executives, for more inclusivity, and for a more comprehensive ecosystem of measures — which will benefit from a strong, visible commitment by the CEO and the executive committee.

Male Executives Don’t Feel Guilt, See Work-Life Balance as a Women's Problem

A revealing—and depressing—article in this month’s Harvard Business Reviewshows that no matter how much power female executives have accrued, or how much lip service male executives might publicly pay, family issues are still seen as a female problem.

Harvard Business School professor Boris Groysberg and research associate Robin Abrahams looked at interviews of nearly 4,000 C-suite executives conducted by HBS students from 2008-2013. Forty-four percent of the interviewees were female. And while the men and women often had the same job titles, the similarities stopped there.

The first difference between male and female execs is in the way they frame work-life conflicts. The men tend to choose work without regret when conflicts arise, because they frame their family role as “breadwinner.” This seems to alleviate any guilt. One interviewee says he doesn’t regret his divorce because he was always a good provider and was able to achieve his goals, and now he spends more time with his kids on weekends. Another says: 

“The 10 minutes I give my kids at night is one million times greater than spending that 10 minutes at work.”

As the authors point out, most women would not brag about only spending 10 minutes a day with their children. Contrast this with how a female executive frames her experience: “When you are paid well, you can get all the [practical] help you need. What is the most difficult thing, though—what I see my women friends leave their careers for—is the real emotional guilt of not spending enough time with their children. The guilt of missing out.”

That women are paying for the practical help—while male executives tend to receive practical help from a stay-at-home spouse—might explain the guilt differential. Per the article, “Fully 88% of the men are married, compared with 70% of the women. And 60% of the men have spouses who don’t work full-time outside the home, compared with only 10% of the women. The men have an average of 2.22 children; the women, 1.67.”

Women interviewed were more likely to say that they avoided marriage and children entirely because they don’t want to deal with the potential conflict. “Because I’m not a mother, I haven’t experienced the major driver of inequality: having children,” one woman said. “People assume that if you don’t have kids, then you either can’t have kids or else you’re a hard-driving bitch. So I haven’t had any negative career repercussions, but I’ve probably been judged personally.”

The most disheartening thing about the survey results is that executives—both male and female—continue to see the tension between work and family as a women’s problem. Male executives admit they don’t prioritize their families enough, and they don’t seem too bothered by it. They praise their spouses for taking over the home front entirely, while female executives praise their spouses for not interfering with their careers.

As Rebecca Traister recently pointed out in the New Republic, when we’re trying to solve the problem of not enough women in the upper echelons of business, tech, and politics, we always direct these conversations at women themselves. Lean in, we tell them! Marry a man who will stay at home! But the problem here isn’t women’s lack of ambition or, necessarily, their lack of support at home. The issue is that we need to get men to acknowledge work-life conflicts as an everyone issue, not a women’s issue or a mom issue.

But Traister is more optimistic than I am. She says that to get work-life balance issues on everyone’s radar, women need to “send aggressive messages about what’s wrong not just to each other, but to the dudes.” The problem, as outlined in the HBR piece, is that male executives—and here, we are talking about a very small percentage of super high-achieving men who run things, not men as a whole—don’t seem to care about being at home more. I don’t see how aggressively worded messages will change that. If there’s someone who will work insane hours, why would you give a promotion to someone who can’t or doesn’t want to? Indeed, even as stay-at-home dads with executive wives have gotten more ink lately, among two-parent households where women work, the number of stay-at-home dudes has slightly declined since the early ’90s.

So where does that leave us? The one silver lining of the article is that the HBS students who interviewed the executives were dismayed by the findings. Both male and female students resisted the notion that you can’t be an executive and also lead a balanced life. What remains to be seen is whether they’ll do anything to change it decades from now when they’re the ones in power.

Eight Steps to a Better Work-Life Balance for Women

Although finding a truly flexible work arrangement can take time, and will work best in certain jobs and industries, these important steps are a good place to start:

#1. Define your version of work/life balance: If you're a student or just starting your career, think about where you plan to be in five or 10 years. Will you focus exclusively on your career, or do you plan to have a family at some point? If you're in a relationship, talk to your partner about how you want to define your lives together. Do you plan to have kids? Do you have an aging parent who will soon need care? Does one of you plan to go back to school to further your career? How will you manage those demands on your time if you both work full-time, particularly if you both have challenging careers? If you're married, many of the same questions will apply. Will one of you focus on your career while the other focuses on family demands? Or will you both continue to work and share the workload at home? You may find that you and your partner have drastically different answers to these types of questions -- or you might be on exactly the same page. But you won't know until you have this important conversation.

#2. Find a mentor who can help: Research shows that women who have strong mentors advance more quickly in their careers and report high levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction. Mentors can provide importance guidance on what has (and hasn't) worked for them over the course of their careers. They can introduce you to other influential women in your industry. And they can act as a valuable sounding board when you need someone to discuss your ideas and aspirations with.

#3. Talk to your current employer: If you're already working at a job you love, but you feel challenged by the lack of work/life balance, speak to your manager or human resources. Flexible work arrangements often aren't communicated well by employers, but if you dig into your workplace policies, you may find that options do exist. And you'd be surprised at how willing companies are to be flexible when they want to retain talented employees. Be prepared with a few solutions, including a commitment to maintaining the same quality of work and achieving the same results. Propose a three-month trial period that will give you both the option to revoke the agreement if it isn't working.

#4. Do your research: An Internet search will uncover extensive content about women and work/life balance, as well as information on fields, industries and companies that offer flexible work arrangements. You'll also find telling research on careers that place the highest time demands on employees and are now seeing women leave in droves. The legal profession comes to mind: instead of moving toward partnerships, women are leaving law firms to become in-house counsel at corporations or government agencies, non-profits or educational institutions, where the focus typically isn't on face time or billable hours. As a result, women account for less than 20 per cent of partners in North American law firms.

#5. Build and leverage your network: Use LinkedIn to your advantage to connect with women in a field or at a company that you're aspiring to join. Traditionally, men have advanced in their careers by building strong networks and leveraging the relationships they've built. There's some truth to the expression, "It's not just what you know, but who you know." Women could advance more quickly in their careers by doing the same, so start honing, building and nurturing a strong network today.

#6. Request informational interviews: Arrange informational interviews with employers at companies you're interested in. Ask questions about flexible work arrangements and try to uncover the realities of the demands at work. If they don't already have flexible work arrangements, find out why. If they do, find out how successful they've been. This is a good way to get a handle on what's happening in your industry and to compare one employer with another.

#7. Don't settle if you don't succeed at first: Once you find an arrangement you think will work for you, try it out. If it doesn't work as well as you had hoped, make some changes and try again. For example, you may enter into a traditional "flex time" arrangement with your employer, and find it far less flexible than you had hoped. The traditional approach to flex time often means working four out of five days at a reduced annual salary, and it sometimes means cramming five days' worth of work in four. If there are red flags, trust your intuition and look elsewhere for opportunities that might offer more flexibility. Remember, the ultimate goal is to have an enjoyable career, bring financial prosperity to your family, and enjoy the ride with your loved ones along the way.

#8. Once you make it, lend a helping hand to others: The traditional workforce is slowly being redefined by social change, with the help of advocates who are already enjoying the benefits of truly flexible work arrangements. If you've achieved balance, support your friends and colleagues who are seeking the same. Become someone's mentor, so they can learn from your successes and from what didn't work along the way. Spend time shaping your children's - especially your daughters' - beliefs about what it means to "create their all." Teach them what to ask for and how to ask for it, and make sure they know they have the power to drive this kind of social change.

Women bloggers offer tips on work-life balance

MUMBAI: Hushed up ladies' room talk on how to strike home work place balance is growing into a stronger voice, with several women business leaders blogging to support ambitious women who don't want to give up everything for corporate success.

While gender diversity may be helping organisations become better work places, the situation is far from perfect. Office-going women often become victims of taunts as they struggle to juggle between their professional and more challenging domestic responsibilities.

"I leave work at 5:30 pm. This is a dirty little secret of my work life. In my 22 years in advertising I have not given JWT my nights," Swati Bhattacharya, a creative director with advertising agency JWT, wrote in a blog on 'the ladies finger', a newly launched women's e-magazine.

"I know many of my male colleagues have judged me and hinted that I'm a slacker. They've looked at the watch pointedly around 5.30 pm and said isn't it time for you to pack up?"

Her blog, criticizing such taunts, was shared, tweeted and forwarded several times over. Bhattacharya is one of several women high up on the corporate ladder who are using the Internet's wide reach to motivate and support female office-goers . Nita Kapoor, executive vice-president at Godfrey Philips, urges women to allow themselves to "not be perfect".

"When I ask my women executives to describe a satisfying life, they often envision a scenario in which they want to please their bosses, mother-in-laws and husbands — strike a perfect balance between work and life. This is where the trouble starts. I'd like to tell them this concept of work-life balance is a false dichotomy and you can stop beating yourself up trying to achieve it. After all, why do you think you need it? Because someone else said so..." she says. "If we, women, assert ourselves, people perceive us as feminist. If we are softer, we aren't seen as strong leaders. But to climb the ladder, women have to navigate this double bind. Moreover, women need to stop over-thinking, over-reacting and also over apologizing,"

Kapoor writes in her blog, cause it works. Similar sentiments have been expressed by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, who reportedly leaves office at 5:30 pm most days to be with her two young children and husband. Sandberg's blogs and her best-selling book, 'Lean In', which advise on how to make the best of available opportunities, have won her millions of fans among working women.

Bias at the work place is not new. It has been popular subject for cinema almost from the time women started stepping into the corporate world. But what makes it difficult to overturn is its tenacious roots in cultural norms. Women who standing up against it are now increasingly using blogs and social media to express their views.

"Indian children are taught not to speak out to their elders or air their opinion, and because of this early training, many women don't openly discuss their career aspirations—either at home or at work," writes Shachi Irde India, executive director of Catalyst India, an organisation that works to create and expand opportunities for women in the corporate sector. "In addition, India's patriarchal society gives preference to the male child. Boys are taught to shoulder family responsibilities, while girls are brought up to be submissive."

Radio City chief executive Apurva Purohit, who has turned her blog posts into a book, writes, "The country presents a fascinating paradox: on the one hand, more women than ever are asserting their rights; on the other hand, many remain subjugated." While the likes of Bhattacharya and Kapoor are lending their names to the debate, others are joining the conversation under pseudonyms for fear of a backlash. Anonymity on the Internet makes it easy for women to report such cases, says Saloni Malhotra, entrepreneur and co-founder of the blog site Safecity.in. Kapoor says she blogs to address issues that nag her.

"In the process, if it becomes a learning and feedback material for my female colleagues, I am more than happy," she adds. "These blogs have become a forum for women to share views and insights on tackling work life balance guilt, handling a boss, raising a baby or managing a mother-in-law. The next one I will write is 10 questions to my younger self."
Purohit's book, 'Lady, don't be a man', which draws inspiration from Sandberg, offers tips to working women—who are wives, mothers, daughter-in-laws and daughters—on how to make it to the top without resorting to pumping testosterone or male bashing. "Such blogs are more a discussion forum where women can open up about anything they want—from bad bosses to office spouses, from stilettos to mojitos, from babies to boyfriends.

Sitting at our desks, we will have ended up building an entire support system of soul sisters and friends in arms," she writes. While some women business leaders are using social media to offer tips on work-life balance, others are using the platform to initiate discussions pertinent to their business. A popular figure in the second category is Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, who engages actively with her followers and detractors on the micro-blogging site twitter.

FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS-WLB

 Findings And Suggestions
FINDINGS

• Majority of working women under the age group of 25-35 years
• 83% of working women were married and remaining unmarried. Out of 83% 75.5% of them have children.
•  The working women belongs to nuclear family were 67% 
• 30.7% of Married Women having satisfaction to spend time to read, magazines and newspaper etc.
• The leading cause of stress arises because of communication with superior.
• 18% of respondents having salary above 20000 having servant in their home.
• 60% of the respondents completed graduation
• 58% of the respondents having ability to balances work and family.
• 39% of women having working experiences of 1-3 year.
•  43.5% of women spend half an hour for travelling.
• Majority of working women having pay scale of 5000-10000.
• 57% of working women manage stress by involving in various entertainment activities.
• Only 13% of respondents highly satisfied to cancel plan with spouses or parents when they have to work 
• late.
• Among 200 respondents only 17% having satisfaction to make spouses/parents to accept job demand.
• Only 7% of respondents strongly agree that they talk up to superior when they deserve promotion.
• 9.5% of respondents accept any type of job.
• 3.1.2 Weighted Average Method.
• Organization satisfaction factor provides job performance award have more priority.
• According to weighted average method the work-family conflict factor spend time dependent have more priority.

CONCLUSION

               The problems are faced not only by the lower level of the employees but also higher level. The research 

I have reviewed in this report provides an empirical justification for innovative policy development includes 

long work hours and work–life conflict. The overall conclusion is that long-term exposure of workers to 

excessive work hours and high levels of work-to-family interference elevates their risk of mental and physical 

health problems. Moreover, it is clear from the research that solutions to these potential problems must address 

workload and job demands, employee choice and flexibility in work hours and arrangements, organizational 

cultures, and the behaviors’ of managers at all levels. From this research it is understand that women faced 

several challenges to balances work and family. Both private and public sector has to reframe the policies in 

order to balances family and life

orking in public sector having more organization satisfaction than private sector.

WOMEN WHO ACHIEVED

Work-life balance - "Live in the   present'

At 34, she's got the `Exemplary Women Leadership Award'. 

This business leader believes women entrepreneurs need to negotiate better work life balance. 

Achieving work-life balance: For me, work-life balance means enjoying a cup of tea at home without having to worry about work. And while you are at work, you should not stressa bout situations at home. Work-life balance is about being focused and dedicated in everything you do. It is important to live in the present rather than worry about the future. It is also about enjoying the varied experiences that  life has to offer.

Being a fit person: These days, being fit is more about how you look in the mirror. Whether you're a man or a woman, what actually matters the most is how healthy you are from within. And this largely depends on the kind of food you're consuming, your exercise schedule and whether you're keeping your mind and soul happy. It is vital to get rid of negative energy and anxiety. Moreover, it is also essential to take charge of your health by opting for regular medical check-ups. Being physically healthy and mentally balanced is the key. 

Work-life balance - "I've learnt to persevere"

She's one of India's few lady CFOs. She has won the `Best CFO Award' and manages to balance her professional as well as family life effortlessly.

Vibha Padalkar, CFO and executive director, HDFC Life 

Achieving work-life balance: A mother's equation with herchildren is always evolving. When the kids are young, they demand a lot of your time. I tried to manage that with meticulous planning each day. I use technology to my advantage. For me, the boundary betweenwork and home is a blur. I don't believe I need to "switch off"; I have a flexible approach. During the IPO (Initial Public Offering) of the company I was previously working with, I'd come home only to have dinner with my son, who was then five years old, put him to bed and then go back to office (10 km away) around 10 pm.
As I was leading a team, I could not allow personal commitments to affect my professional life.

A STORY ABOUT RUKSANA

A recent People Matters survey finds that Indian employers are not so serious about employee leaves and time offs

           Yes, the number of women opting for MBA's  in India is increasing. And yes, India Inc. is consistently working to hire more women, who are young, ambitious and increasingly qualified.

But can these women strike a good work-life balance?

Even though India Inc. has been encouraging a greater number of women in the workplace, that number is still low. A new study by Grant Thornton, a global accounting and advisory firm, shows that on average, women make up only 15% of the workforce in Indian companies. Globally, this figure stood at 35%. Today, only 1.8% of CEOs in India are women.

The story of Ruksana, an 11-year-old living on the streets of Kolkata, is one of nine that features in “Girl Rising,” a film about the struggles that girls around the world face to get an education.

The film, released on International Women’s Day, is narrated by A-list Hollywood stars, including Oscar winners Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson.

Ruksana’s story, which is told by Priyanka Chopra, was picked after screenwriters and producers conducted hundreds of interviews with girls trying to get an education in countries stretching from India to Haiti, Peru to Afghanistan. Nine were chosen and their stories were put together in a series of fictionalized documentaries.

“Ruksana’s story is about a really plucky little girl who is always very positive, who lives on the street and how she survives with her smile intact despite all the problems life throws at her,” Sooni Taraporevala, who turned Ruksana’s story into a screenplay for the movie, says of the little girl with a talent for art.

While Ruksana was growing up, her family’s bamboo and cloth home on a sidewalk in Kolkata was often demolished by police in so-called programs of beautification. Then in early 2011 a film crew showed up asking her to star in a movie about her life.

Throughout it all, the little girl fond of wearing braided bunches and a smart red tie has kept going to school.

Ms. Taraporevala told The Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time that she spent four days with Ruksana in Kolkata getting to know her and finding out what her life was like.

   “I chose her because I connected with her being very      fond of drawing and being an artist and having an imagination,I felt as a writer she would be a great  subject,” said Ms. Taraporevala, who also wrote the Academy Award-nominated “Salaam Bombay!” about the lives of street children in Mumbai.

“This is not an out and out documentary, it’s fictional but I haven’t created anything that hasn’t happened,” she said.

All but two girls play themselves in the movie. Concerns for the safety of two of the girls meant actors played their parts. Ruksana plays herself in “Girl Rising,” but actors play the other parts, including her father, who sells sugarcane juice to make a living. Ruksana’s parents had migrated to Kolkata from a rural Indian village in order to find work and to educate their children.

She is one of the lucky ones, says Liam Neeson, the actor whose voice links the girls’ stories together.

“Her parents can’t afford a place to live but they somehow find a way to get their daughters to school,” Mr. Neeson says during the film. Earlier he  says “Educating girls is one of the highest returns on investment in the developing world.”

World Vision, a Christian charity, works with Ruksana’s family and provides the children with school supplies, extra tutoring and a meal every day.

“Because life on the streets can be dangerous, Ruksana and her sisters spend their nights in a nearby shelter run by a local NGO,” a spokesman for the charity said.

In India, four million girls are estimated to be out of school, according to a study conducted in 2009 by the Social and Rural Research Institute in New Delhi.

However estimates vary widely. An earlier study by the Basic Education Coalition in Washington, D.C. said 40 million children, including boys, were out of school in India.

In India, girls’ education is often halted by early marriage, a preference by some parents to educate their sons, and a lack of separate toilets for girls in schools, especially once they reach puberty, education campaigners say.

In “Girl Rising,” produced by education campaign 10X10, the figure for girls out of school worldwide is put at 66 million.

The 10×10 campaign, which is in partnership with Intel, says that educating girls has a significant positive impact on their health, safety and future earning power.

Goldman Sachs GS -0.49% estimated in 2012 that educating more girls in emerging economies would narrow the gender gap in employment and could push income per capita up to 14% higher than the bank’s baseline predictions by 2020.

A World Bank study in 2002 indicated that girls get an 18% return on investment from secondary education against a 14% return for boys.

“Girl Rising” has been marketed entirely via Facebook and Twitter and is being screened in the U.S. through Gathr, a crowd sourced film distribution service.

What will happen to Ruksana after it is released? A spokesman for World Vision said the producers and Intel had committed to providing financial support for her education but she and her family will likely remain living on the streets.

“Even though we may think that, simply building or providing a house for her will solve the problem, the issue is complex and multi-layered, much like poverty itself,” the spokesman said in an email statement.

“Such drastic moves may overwhelm people and catch them unprepared for unforeseen expenses and challenges. Also, once outside their own community and World Vision’s target area, they are also geographically beyond the support and safety net that they earlier benefitted from,” he added.