Hi everybody!
I found an interesting article about the female-to-male ratio in executive management roles.
In Europe is it still 71% men and 29% women in such higher positions.
What do you think about this facts? What is your opinion on why it is still this way?
http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1020893/female-male-management-ratio-europe-71-mercer
Hi Lisa
AntwortenLöschenunfortunately this ratio is really true. I think that many women careers are biased simply because of the "risk" of getting pregnant. For example in Austria the law is not really supporting families with small children and mothers who are working. In Austria for example, the company has to pay if a mother/father stays at home with their kids when it is is sick, in Sweden the government pays for it. This is one of the reasons why firms rather employ men than women.
In the article something about "women quotas" was mentioned. It might be a step in the right direction, in order to give women more responsibilities - but to be be honest I am not a fan of these quotas at all. As I mentioned in the article of Silvia before (the one with the disabled people) such quotas can lead to "affirmative action" - positive discrimination - and this is also not something people want. I wouldn't want to be given a job, just because I am a woman - I want it because I am qualified for it.
I am not sure how fast or if this ratio will change. I hope it will, for our own sake - and for the companies. Just look in our study program - 60% of the students are women ;)
Hello,
AntwortenLöschenThank you for the article! I think sometimes this topic is taken to extremes, from my point of view in many European countries women do receive same rights as men and problem is not is discrimination but in prejudice. If woman is going to the interview with an idea in her head that this position is suppose to be for man then of course she will not receive it because she is lacking confidence. On the other hand if woman worked hard, received her education, developed herself it will not even come to her that some higher rank position is only for males. Life proof for that are Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, Christine Lagarde.
And yes might be numbers from statistics are not the brightest but also think about idea that 71% of men in higher position have wives home who I believe in most of the cases give advices and control the situation :) Great example of that is Michelle Obama who told "If I had married another man he would now be a President" ;)
So I truly think that in Europe 98 % of women are in executive management roles just they do their work from home!
Indeed a very interesting statistic, but honestly I would have thought that less women were in management positions! I already read the article right after it was posted, but I felt there are so many things to consider, it simply is a very complex issue! So I want to thank Polina very much for looking at it also from another angle! Really great!
AntwortenLöschenAnd regarding Lisa's comment on who pays for the paternal leave, I have to correct it: also in Austria not the employer pays, but the social security is responsible for it! The hassle organizations see with paternity leaves is more in having to find a person to fill in for the time!
Again, there are so many aspects to consider why this is the case, for one I find differing values play a big role, even though that might be stereotyping again but females value social relations more thus often are not willing to give up social ties for a career. Also research shows that other typical value differences can be found in agressiveness, competitiveness, goals of communication, etc. and of course all these things lead to being perceived as being less capable for a management position. Anyway, since the skills requirements in these positions are drastically changing with the information age we know that females could fill this gap easily by being more collaborative, etc.
But I also think education plays a big role! In 1985 in Austria 44 % of students were female, we expect in 2015 to have 62 % of all students being female. I would expect that this high level of participation in higher education will also reflect in a couple of years of more females being in management positions.
Plus, of course child care, since it still is in most cases the responsibility of females to take care of the major part of child care and houshold duties there needs to be more support!
And on top of it I think women simply have to practice their assertiveness!
I guess these are some of the major aspects of a highly complex topic! But surely not all yet!
Hi everybody,
AntwortenLöschenA very complex topic indeed and not easy to comment for a man here. First of all I totally agree with Polina, that life proofs, that in theory the chances are the same, because the (probably) most powerful person in Europe right now, is a woman, and this is not the only example.
But coming back to the "woman quota" - During the last elections in Germany, this was a very big and controversial topic and in my opinion, this is nothing the government should interfere in.
Giving companies a law, that they have to employe a specific number of woman will cause many problems. Jobs might be not given to the person who really deserves it, problems at the working place will arise because people will maybe know from some friend of the HR department, if someone got the job just because of the quota etc. Woman will automatically lose a part of their "equal status". No one knows anymore if she really got the job because she is the best for it. So I can understand Lisa, woman should get the job, because of their skills and because they are simply better than others. A quota would sell a lot people under value and would not help anybody, neither the company nor the woman.
Hi all,
AntwortenLöschenAs Felix commented above this is very problematic issue especially for men to answer.
I am coming from a country, which was recently ranked second after Iceland in term of equality. This type of topic is very common in Finland and discussion around these quotas is heating up every now and then. I definitely stand for equal rights but in my point of view always when law is applied to secure one's rights there always is a downside. As written above the person, no matter if person is he, she or shackled in a transsexual body. The position must go to an applicant who is most suitable for the task.
Instead of limiting the process by law the change must happen in peoples mindsets. The change happens only when there is enough of discussion around the topic and when we have inspiring examples, which Polina mentioned. History is full of examples where countries tried to apply laws to ban or restrict something and more often than not these endeavors fail badly. Equal status should be sovereign value, not a quota.
Hi folks,
AntwortenLöschenthank you Lisa for the article and thank you guys for the interesting comments so far. What comes to my mind in this regard is that the application of a law and/or a quota cannot serve the will and purpose of all subjects affected by this. In my opinion one approach is to form task forces within labor unions to offend this issue. Well, I am aware that there had been developments already in this direction, however in my opinion this issue should be targeted at its very source. I agree with Niko´s opinion - I also support the equality mindset - and I am sick of the medieval approach in some industries to say "Women could never ever perform the same tasks as men are able to." The following statement might be contested, but in many tasks women are simply ahead of us men. I think it´s useful to increase the sensitivity to this topic within the enterprise on a company level, in order to make the participants aware and use their thoughts and contribution to find an individual technique to improve the ratio (talent distribution, team assignments,...)
Lisa P., I totally agree with you saying that you are no real fan of these women quotas. I am neither.
AntwortenLöschenThe only thing that comes to my mind when being confronted with this issue is that I, as a woman applying for a job with a company from which I know it is applying quotas, if I got the job, would always have in the back of my mind that there could be the chance that I did not get the job because I deserved it and because I was the most qualified candidate, but because the company has to fulfil any (stupid) quota.
I believe that the "necessity" of introducing woman quotas for management positions testifys for weakness - weakness of a country's system with regard to equality, weakness of the minds of a nation's population and weakness of companies to finally get over this gender issue and simply hire the best fit for a position, not the best male fit!
In our HR book (if you read that Ms. Surböck: yes, I read the chapters prior to class ;) ) there is an example of Walmart setting certain promotion goals for women: if 40 percent of the qualified people who apply for a position at Walmart are women, 40 percent of those hired should be women. That's exactly what I meant before: a woman gets the job with Walmart and can be rather sure that she got that job exactly because of Walmart striving for fulfilling its quota goal. Personnally, I wouldn't be satisfied with the job then.
For me, this whole "quota thing" contributes rather negatively to the discussion of women and equal opportunities. That such quotas (need to) exist, simply shows that there is no such thing as equal opportunities for women.
And yes Polina, you just said out loud what everybody is thinking ("So I truly think that in Europe 98 % of women are in executive management roles just they do their work from home!") ;)
What I found very shocking when reading Lisa's article was the fact that in Saudi Arabia there are no women in senior positions at all and that also in other Arab countries such as Qatar the ratio is extremely low. Of course I know that the position of women in the Arab society and culture cannot be compared to the position of women in any Central European country, but still, as naïve as I am, it always takes me by surprise (shock) again.
Also the widely discussed ban of Arab women driving cars which was omnipresent in the news a couple of days/weeks ago - unbelievable! (But that's now a little off topic..)
To Ms. Surböck's input with regard to continuously increasing female participation in higher education: if it will be 62% by 2015 (and the ratio of females in higher positions will increase in a couple of years due to this higher participation of females in higher education), where are the roughly 50% of females already holding a degree by 2013?
If the female executive representation in Austria solely makes up 21% now even though half of Austria's academics are female, the ratio doesn't fit at all.
http://onswipe.investopedia.com/investopedia/#!/entry/female-managers-can-raise-share-values,52600ec9da27f5d9d039b2ed/1
AntwortenLöschenI find this article an interesting addition to yours, and a really complex topic!