New Delhi, Nov. 6 -- In a 1990 essay for The New York Review of Books, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen first drew attention to the huge gender imbalance in many developing countries, where the sex ratios were skewed against females.

Sen estimated that more than 100 million women had gone 'missing' because of female infanticide and 'son preference' across the globe. That provoked a debate, and helped focus policy attention on protecting the girl child in the developing world.

In India, women now outnumber men in many schools, colleges and universities. Women voters are courted by every other political party. Yet, when it comes to the corporate ladder, the top rungs are still dominated by men.

A recent International Labour Organization (ILO) ...