While the percentage of women students enrolled in the Indian Institute of Management (IIMS) in Lucknow and Calcutta has fallen since 2020, other centers of India’s major business school have reported a slight increase.
Narayanan Ramaswamy, head of education and skill development practice at KPMG in India and head of education and skill development practice, said, “I have seen that in this case, more female faculty, young women attract students.”
“Older IIMs have an inheritance and installed processes. It makes any more changes in their current situation than their new counterparts. So when the established B-school is trying to improve the enrollment of women, it is taking a long time for them,” said Ramaswamy.
India’s top B-schools also have more female students to ensure that companies emphasize diversity and inclusion while recruiting, so that it is important to have a balanced sex ratio for better management institutes for better management institutes. Campus placement,
In IIM-Visakhapatnanm, which was established in 2015, the number of all students in 2020–22 batch increased by 31%, to 51% in the latest 2025–27 batch. Other new IIMs, however, have not achieved equal success.
IIM-Ranki, which was established in 2009, saw 39.84% women students from 39.84% female students in 2020–22 batch in 2022-24 batch, up to 26.6% in 2022-24 batch, which was 41.56% for academic years 2024-26 before 41.56% in last year’s batch.
In IIM-REAPUR, which was established in 2010, the percentage of female students fell from 41% in 2020-22 to 40% last year. However, it had 60% female students in its 2023–25 batch.
The sex ratio was not available for the latest batch of Ranchi and Raipur Schools.
A Lopard Feeder Pool
While both Kozhikode and Indore IIMS established in 1996, their latest batch for the 2025–27 academic year has more female students than men, in IIM-Calcutta (1961 vintage) and IIM-Bangalore (1973), male students are dominated.
At the Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur (XLRI), which offers one year MBA program, the number of women has increased from about 37% in 2020-21 to about 46% in the upcoming batch of 2025-26.
“This inequality in the penis comes from the loped feeder pool as CAT (general entry test for IIMS), which is more quantitative and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), which are heavierly taking more men than women,” Evartica Tomar said that EY-Parthenon, Education Practice.
“In addition, despite the premises of the complexes, despite the efforts to protect their campuses and efforts to improve the infrastructure, the perception of some cities. They are located in concerns, some IIMs as parents are not located in more desirable metro cities,” Tomor said.
In 2024, out of about 329,000 registered candidates for CAT, only 119,000 women were women.
Over the years, IIM has had to work hard to secure placement for its students. Hiring freeze After a post-pandemic hiring frenzy.
Increasing corporate emphasis on diversity and inclusion, however, is looking for ways to encourage more female students in major management schools in India.
“IIMS are more focused on enrollment of more female students, especially with bonus marking,” said a senior official in one of the new IIMs. As part of the IIM admission process, female candidates are awarded 2–10 additional marks. The official said, “It helps in the placement process as corporates prefer to recruit female candidates on men when they have similar qualities and calibers,” the official said.
Riya Dalal contributed reporting for this article.
