Team ACNielsen ORG-MARG: (L to R) Aparna Sen, Udayan Biswas, Anubha Gupta, Sudip Gupta and Koyel Nandi conducted and analysed the survey

ACNielsen ORG-MARG conducted the Working Women 2004 Survey in six centres, covering the metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, and three smaller towns of Kochi, Indore and Kanpur. The fieldwork was conducted in August 2004 and covered 1,015 women, who worked at least 20 hours per week across a range of professions (doctors to professionally-qualified executives). The respondent universe spanned working women aged between 21 and 45 years in sec A and B homes, with a minimum monthly household income of Rs 10,000 and personal income of Rs 5,000. Covering women below this income level was felt to be counterproductive in terms of marketing initiatives.

The objectives of the extensive study were to understand from the working woman the following issues:

• Her involvement and role in decision-making
• Her role and contribution to family budget and purchases
• The extent of her freedom to decide on spends
• Usage and consumption patterns of various products
• The extent of her openness to adopt new products/services
• Her role models in professional and personal life
• Her favourite personalities in the areas of entertainment, sports and politics.

In terms of demographic profile, more than two-thirds of the women belonged to sec A and the rest to sec B, and 70 per cent of them were married and the rest, single. A majority of the women polled (24 per cent) were between the ages of 26 and 30, followed by those between 41 and 45. The rest were almost equally in the age bands of 31 to 35 and 36 to 40. A staggering 83 per cent of the women worked full time, and nearly half (46 per cent) had at least a graduate degree. Almost a fifth (18 per cent) had a post-graduate (general) degree, and the percentage of women who had a high school or post-graduate professional degree was 10 per cent each. What kind of work were the women we surveyed engaged in? Thirty-seven per cent had a clerical or sales job, but almost a quarter were junior executives. The percentage of self-employed professionals was 12 and of those in senior management, 10 per cent. The ACNielsen ORG-MARG team that conducted the survey and analysed its results comprised Aparna Sen, Udayan Biswas, Anubha Gupta, Sudip Gupta, and Koyel Nandi.