Her Story
About Shatakshi
I'm a development economics researcher specializing in gender economic research and evidence-driven data analysis. I've been doing economic development research for almost 9 years now, and I'm currently working at the World Bank for almost 2 years, where I'm part of the gender department. We research on knowledge pieces, trying to evaluate different pathways and create opportunities for female employment. My typical day involves working on multiple projects - one part usually works around contributing to collecting and creating a dashboard for gender disaggregated data so that it can be used and also highlight the gender gaps. A lot of organizations and developed economies in Europe, the OECDs, and all of that also do not collect gender-disaggregated data, which translates into not knowing how big of a gender gap there is for economic opportunities for women in getting capital and then being able to utilize it for creating their small businesses and seeking employment. The second part of my day usually revolves around doing research products, creating reports, policy briefs on how we can solve female employment problems. For instance, my current research is looking at how digital work platforms can be a very good opportunity for female employment, especially in sectors like care, beauty, and local services where there is a lot of female employment opportunities. I also write research papers for academic journals - I'm about to publish one of my research papers in academic journals. When I come back from work, sometimes I spend an hour or two on my own PhD dissertation, where I'm studying how maternity leave policies, if the policies are not designed well, can have some problematic consequences for female employment, so how government needs to be very mindful of the country's own context when creating such policies.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Shatakshi
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think a lot of the times that the small tasks that we do in our work, in our research, can be really important pieces of evidence and support system for the people, or can be voices for people who don't have those opportunities. So I think every day coming with that mindset to work is what basically is the impact that I see myself creating, and even if one to - if all of my years of research and work is able to employ a hundred more, or a thousand more, at least that many more women out there, that would be like one of my biggest successful stories of my life. It's about maintaining that perspective that the work we do matters and can create real change for women who face barriers to employment.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think for me personally, as an international student living and trying to do important meaningful research in the US, it has been very supported financially throughout my student life, but there is still sort of lack of support that I think, especially for international students, that still is there. We work hard for not just ourselves, but also for the community - for instance, I used to teach economics for undergrad students here in the US, I've taught as an undergraduate course instructor for 5 years during my PhD. And I think despite having so significantly contributed in many regards to the US as well, I think the international support is still very lacking. Secondly, I think women in general are still to date underestimated and have to prove themselves multiple times again and again, both in corporate world and even in academic world right now. There were so many instances around having sexist remarks being thrown at us during seminar presentations by old men that you just have to kind of accept and absorb in front of an audience, so those kinds of things are so prevalent even in academia, even in economic research. I think those are the kind of things that hinder a lot of other young girls out there to come up and do similar things. And one of the things that I personally haven't faced yet, but which is something that I learned and I keep repeating it in my work, is the same problem that still exists in so many developed countries - the fact that women tend to drop out of the labor force and employment after their first child is born because men do not think childcare is their responsibility. It's still such a big problem, and I hate to see that, and I hope I can contribute in some way to make that change happen.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · District of Columbia
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.