Power Distance Index (PDI), an index which is not very known among the people but it is very much relevant in today’s context. Developed by Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede, PDI helps in measuring the distribution of power and wealth. It is used to determine the extent to which the people of a particular country have an authoritative image. This index is lower in case of countries where the authoritative people are working closely with their subordinates or people lower in the hierarchy whereas the same index is higher in the countries having a large amount of authority in the hierarchy.
Power Distance Index is broken down into five subfactors that help in coming to a conclusion and giving an index to a particular country. Let us see each of these five aspects in brief:
Individualism
Individualism is the opposite of collectivism which shows the degree to which an individual is willing to work in groups. When we talk about individualism in terms of society, it means that each is responsible for taking care of himself/herself and his or her family. There are no or lose ties among people in the society. If we take an example then, USA (score is 91) is considered to be individualistic whereas Guatemala (score is 6) have strong collectivism.
On the contrary, India is having a score of 48 which is somewhere in midway having a mixture of both individualism and collectivism. This is because people in India have their dreams and their way of working with the major focus on their achievements and benefits. But at the same time, they expect to celebrate their achievements with other people and many a time they even enjoy others achievements. Also, people here celebrate several festivals together irrespective of their background leading to some amount of collectivism in India.
Masculinity
Here, the opposite of masculinity is femininity which refers to gender role distribution and one of the important aspects of any society. In most of the society, men are involved in decision making whereas the role of women is not even considered. But is this the case everywhere in the world? However, according to the PDI index for Masculinity, Japan with 95 had the highest score whereas Sweden with 05 scored the lowest. On the same index, India scored 56, which is not something that we all should cherish. This shows that we as a country are more inclined towards masculinity and it is visible in our daily lives. If we examine the gender roles in our families, it is always male members who are considered to be head of the family irrespective of any other factors (age, experience, etc). However, in the Khasi tribe of Meghalaya, the women play the same role what men play in other parts of the country. Why can’t this thing be replicated in other parts of India? It is something which we all should ask ourselves.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index
It reflects the ability of the society to tolerate uncertainty and sudden change in environment. It represents the degree of how much a society sticks to guidelines, laws, and rely on truth or have a belief
that all the people know the truth. It also assesses the acceptance of people with different thoughts and ideas. In this case, Greece tops the list with a score of 112 and Singapore is at the bottom of the list with a score of eight. This shows that Greece is a country which is not comfortable with uncertainty. They like to abide by rules and regulations and have single thinking and thought process among all the people. On the other hand, Singapore allows maximum relaxation and is ready to face uncertainty in belief and ideas.
India in this index is relatively better than previous indices. It has a score of 40, which is not bad. This shows that people here are ready to face uncertainty and have the freedom to project their thoughts and beliefs. If we go deeper into this then, it is directly linked to the rich and diverse culture that we have where different people practice different cultural rituals.
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Long-Term Orientation
Finally, in the PDI index, India stand with a score of 77 which is high enough showing how the po
wer is unequally distributed in the country. Top country in this list is Malaysia with the score of 104 and Austria with the score of 11 being the lowest.
To conclude, I would like to put a question to all the countrymen, what are their opinions on power distribution in India? Is it equally distributed? If not, then what are the reasons?