The World Economic Forum has just published its 2010 Corporate Gender Gap Report. It surveys 600 leading companies across 16 industries in 20 countries and explores women’s participation in business and companies’ adherence to gender equality policies.
The survey also asked respondents to identify the biggest barriers to women’s leadership and their opinion on the probable effects of the economic downturn on women’s employment in their countries and industries.
Some key findings:
- Female employees are concentrated in entry or middle level positions and remain scarce in senior management or board positions in most countries and industries.
- The average for women holding the CEO-level position was a little less than 5% among the 600 companies surveyed. Finland (13%), Norway (12%), Turkey (12%), Italy (11%) and Brazil (11%) have the highest percentage of women CEOs in this sample.
- Although the problems of wage gaps between women and men are universally recognized, 72% of the companies surveyed do not attempt to track salary gaps at all.
- Almost 40% of the companies surveyed claim to be setting specified targets, quotas or other affirmative policies to improve women’s participation in their structures.
- The biggest barriers to women’s access to leadership positions identified by the respondents are “general norms and cultural practices”, “masculine or patriarchal corporate culture” and “lack of role models”.
- The least important barriers are identified as “lack of adequate parental leave and benefits” and “inadequate labour laws and regulations”.
- More than 30% of respondents in France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom believe the economic downturn would be more harmful for women’s jobs in their country.
Zahidi Saadia, Co-author of the repor tand head of the Forum’s Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme concludes:
“The findings of The Corporate Gender Gap Report are an alarm bell …that the corporate world is not doing enough to achieve gender equality. While a certain set of companies in Scandinavia, the US and the UK are indeed leaders in integrating women, the idea that most corporations have become gender-balanced or women-friendly is still a myth. With this study, we are giving businesses a one-stop guide on what they need to do to close the corporate gender gap.”
Download the full report: http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/corporate2010.pdf
There have been several recent articles extolling the virtues of women and fantasizing about how great the world would be if only we replaced male leaders with women. 
During a recent speaking engagement at a well-known business school I was proudly informed by a university executive that he had recruited mainly women to his team. He clearly expected a pat on the back. I asked him how many women there were on the university executive committee – the answer was none. I was told not to worry, things were getting better and it was just a matter of time. 
Media dominates our lives and strongly influences our views and opinions. Therefore it matters how we include and portray men and women in the media. With this in mind it’s somewhat shocking to read the 
The feminization of the work force gives us an opportunity to create work environments that value a balance between what men and women bring to the table. But it does require women to step up to the plate, be courageous and take some risks.
It’s not news that we still have a gender pay gap – men are still earning more than women doing similar or equivalent jobs. One creative way that women might put their earnings on a par with men is to make different career choices. Perhaps it’s time to be more intentional about invading well-paid jobs that are traditionally held by men.
I read so much about the difficulties women encounter in the workplace that sometimes I feel we spend too much time highlighting the problems and not enough time proposing positive action to improve situations. I was heartened, therefore, to discover the measures underway in the U.K. to close the gender pay gap.
A new study from Catalyst, a research organization that promotes women’s advancement, provides pretty gloomy reading. In 
50-50. Do we need quotas to guarantee balanced leadership?
There are two sides to this hotly debated issue.
First, the naysayers point out that quotas are a form of reverse discrimination – the group now discriminated against (men) are previously the ones that did the discriminating (poor things).
Quotas for 50% women at the top of organizations therefore replaces one form of discrimination with another, and discrimination is a bad thing.
Second, the idea that women might be promoted based on their gender, rather than their ability to do the job, is offensive to many women and men.
“There is no appetite for quotas here,” commented Jacey Graham, co-director of a FTSE-100 cross-company mentoring program for women and the author of a recently published book on women in boardrooms in the U.K.. “There is an appetite to facilitate talented women coming through, but they must be seen to compete on the same terms as male colleagues,” she says.
On the other side of the fence stand those of us (yes, that includes me), who look at the evidence and conclude that quotas are the only way women will be equally represented at the top of organizations.
Women are currently 15.2% of Board Directors and 13.5% of Corporate Officers in Fortune 500 companies. The picture is similar in Canada and most parts of Europe. It’s worse in many other parts of the world.
What’s more, the rate of progress is glacial and shows no sign of speeding up.
Relying on the good sense of male dominated governments and organizations to grasp the excellent business case for gender balanced leadership is not working!
We have tried patience and waiting our turn; we continue to present research that shouts the benefits of more women in board rooms and executive suites – but it’s not working!
Ansgar Gabrielsen, Norwegian minister for trade and industry (2001-2004) was ahead of the game in realizing that such efforts were ineffective. In 2003, he forced through legislation that now has Norway leading the world with over 40% women on the boards of publicly quoted companies.
He knew that this wouldn’t happen without the implementation of legislated quotas.
Other European countries, such as France and Spain, are now treading the same path to force companies to achieve gender balance at the top of organizations.
In India, the women’s reservation bill, has just passed the upper house imposing a 33% quota for women in India’s federal and state assemblies.
Quotas are not an elegant or sophisticated way to bring about change – but unfortunately they might be the only way.
I believe we should start with voluntary quotas for organizations to achieve a minimum 40% women in government, on boards and on senior executive teams with a reasonable time scale to make the change. If this doesn’t work, move straight to legislation to enforce it.
I’m in good company. Kim Campbell, former prime minister of Canada, comes to a similar conclusion in her excellent piece, Holding Half the Seats, published recently in Newsweek.
What do you think? I’d love to know your views.