The Impact of Grit In Terms of Career Breaks: Significance of Educational Qualification Among Women Teachers Attended To Visit Secondly School At Tambaram, Chennai

Abstract

Indian women have been excelling in various professional sectors of the nation, however a large section still takes a break to take care of their children as full-time mothers and face challenges when they are back to work life. “Grit” — defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals — is a widely recognized non-cognitive, positive personal trait which predicts achievement and resilience. The present study investigates the grit of Indian women returning to work after a career break and whether their grit scores differ based on educational qualification. Methods: 210 women teachers from the Tambaram municipal area of Chennai, India were surveyed using Duckworth and Quinn's (2009) Short-Grit scale of eight items (Grit-S). There was a highly significant difference in grit scores across the three educational-qualification groups (undergraduate — UG; postgraduate — PG; above-postgraduate) according to a one-way ANOVA, F(2, 50) = 46.84, p =. 0001. Post hoc independent-samples t-tests indicated that above-postgraduate women scored significantly higher in grit compared to both PG-qualified women (t = 9.21, p =. 014) and women with UG qualifications (t = 9.31, p =. 01) but grit scores did not differ significantly between PG qualified and UG qualified women (t = 0.997, p =. 327). These findings indicate that greater attainment, especially at my higher educational levels, is linked with increased grit among women returning from career interruptions and imply that education could be an important focus of policies aimed at fostering workforce re-entry.