Gender Parity in Business Still 20+ Years Away

[One Girl In All The World]

www.jsonline.com/business/gender-parity-may-be-a-generation-away-b99656748z1-366235081.html?utm_source=nar.al&utm_medium=urlshortener&utm_campaign=FB



Gender parity in the workforce may still be a generation away

By Thomas Content of the Journal Sentinel
Jan. 22, 2016
In the past 10 years, little progress has been made at closing the global gender gap between men and women in the workplace, and corporate leaders surveyed by Milwaukee-based ManpowerGroup Inc. believe it will take another generation to achieve parity.

Those findings highlight two new reports discussed Friday in Davos, Switzerland, on why it's so tough to close the gender gap.

An entrenched male culture is the biggest barrier to making progress, ManpowerGroup found in its report, released at the World Economic Forum. The report says millennials are optimistic that their generation will be the one that achieves parity. But not anytime soon, the company's survey found. Millennial women say it will take 22 years to achieve parity.

A separate report, published by The World Economic Forum on the Industry Gender Gap, found women account for 30% of the workforce across multiple industries, even though they outnumber men in attending universities. Women earn 32% less than men in comparable positions, the survey found.

According to the survey, just 9% of global CEOs are women. Females make up 28% of corporate boards, 15% of senior management functions and 25% of midlevel roles.

"Can we afford to wait another generation? And do we risk losing out on human potential if millennial females become disillusioned with the corporate world? Women are already voting with their feet. Almost half of all small and medium-sized enterprises are majority or equally-led by women," ManpowerGroup's report says.

Companies and other organizations need to use the principle of "conscious inclusion" and not limit women's roles to just certain parts of the organization, said Jonas Prising, chairman and chief executive of ManpowerGroup, during a Davos session Friday on gender parity.

"Women tend to be clustered in certain professions or certain functions, and we believe for there to be more female leaders at the helm of companies — and there are only 4% of (U.S.) companies led by a female CEO — you need to make sure you have women in technical roles and business roles and P&L (profit-and-loss) roles," Prising said.

Social norms in a corporate culture can work against doing so, and corporate leaders need to move deliberately and purposefully to enable women to "move into the pipeline" for leadership roles, he said.

Women hold one-third of board seats at ManpowerGroup, up from zero when former CEO Jeff Joerres made a personal commitment to add women to the board. Under Prising, one-third of top executives are female, and one-half of what the company calls its "emerging leaders" are women, the ManpowerGroup report said.

Prising spoke along with Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation and Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, as well as Canada's Justin Trudeau, who last year appointed the world's first gender-balanced cabinet after he won election as prime minister.

"Men have to be part of this conversation. We shouldn't be afraid of the word feminist," Trudeau said. "Men and women should use it to describe themselves anytime they want."

Inequity starts at home, given the unwritten but still persistent expectations about women's roles as family caretaker and CEO-of-the-house, said Gates. Mothers, not fathers, are often those leaving work to take their child to the doctor, she said.

Changing that will take replacing maternity leave policies with family leave policies, said Gates, adding just two of 50 U.S. states have family leave policies.

"There's a toddler wage gap in the U.S.," added Sandberg. "Boys are taking out the trash. It takes less time than cleaning the dishes, and they're getting higher allowances. We start out in our homes with these very different expectations, and the time spent on these tasks is incredibly important and very different."

Alex Molinaroli, chairman and CEO of Johnson Controls Inc., is also in Davos this week, and serves as a trustee for the World Economic Forum's focus on gender parity. Glendale-based Johnson Controls provides incentives to managers who meet certain gender targets, he wrote in a column posted on the forum's website.

"Although gender quotas are often perceived negatively by men and women alike, they're a stimulant for change," Molinaroli wrote. "It's not about filling a seat, it's about starting the conversation, bringing awareness and driving change."

Also Friday, 10 companies, including Barclays Plc, Twitter Inc., PricewaterhouseCoopers and Tupperware Brands, announced they are joining forces with the United Nations to raise awareness that not enough is being done to help women reach parity in the global workplace.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

[aurora]

Feb 7, 2016 13:28:11 GMT -5 One Girl In All The World said:

www.jsonline.com/business/gender-parity-may-be-a-generation-away-b99656748z1-366235081.html?utm_source=nar.al&utm_medium=urlshortener&utm_campaign=FB

...

"There's a toddler wage gap in the U.S.," added Sandberg. "Boys are taking out the trash. It takes less time than cleaning the dishes, and they're getting higher allowances. We start out in our homes with these very different expectations, and the time spent on these tasks is incredibly important and very different."

...

Is this really true? (that boys have less time-consuming chores and get more allowance than their sisters)

[One Girl In All The World]

Feb 7, 2016 17:35:47 GMT -5 aurora said:

Feb 7, 2016 13:28:11 GMT -5 One Girl In All The World said:

www.jsonline.com/business/gender-parity-may-be-a-generation-away-b99656748z1-366235081.html?utm_source=nar.al&utm_medium=urlshortener&utm_campaign=FB

...

"There's a toddler wage gap in the U.S.," added Sandberg. "Boys are taking out the trash. It takes less time than cleaning the dishes, and they're getting higher allowances. We start out in our homes with these very different expectations, and the time spent on these tasks is incredibly important and very different."

...

Is this really true? (that boys have less time-consuming chores and get more allowance than their sisters)

www.salon.com/2013/08/15/even_little_kids_have_a_wage_gap/

Apparently so.

"A 2009 study conducted by University of Michigan economists found a two-hour gender disparity in responsibilities per week in a study of 3,000 kids. That same year, Highlights magazine, a children’s publication, surveyed its readers and found that 75 percent of girls had chores, while just 65 percent of boys did. This disparity in chores and free time continues into adulthood all over the world. According to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), men “report spending more time in activities counted as leisure than women. Gender differences in leisure time are wide across OECD countries.”

The fact that boys’ chores appear to be more profitable makes the childhood chore gap even more disturbing. Turns out, parents tend to value the work that boys typically do more highly than the work girls do. A website that helps parents teach children how to earn, spend and save responsibly, pktmny, found “significant divides based on gender, age and the nature of the task being undertaken by each child,” according to Louise Hill, COO of the company. For example, mowing the lawn generally garners higher allowance wages than folding laundry. Shoveling a snow-covered driveway might yield more cash in hand than emptying the dishwasher."

[aurora]

Feb 7, 2016 18:21:44 GMT -5 ttt said:

Feb 7, 2016 17:43:59 GMT -5 One Girl In All The World said:

www.salon.com/2013/08/15/even_little_kids_have_a_wage_gap/

Apparently so.

"A 2009 study conducted by University of Michigan economists found a two-hour gender disparity in responsibilities per week in a study of 3,000 kids. That same year, Highlights magazine, a children’s publication, surveyed its readers and found that 75 percent of girls had chores, while just 65 percent of boys did. This disparity in chores and free time continues into adulthood all over the world. According to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), men “report spending more time in activities counted as leisure than women. Gender differences in leisure time are wide across OECD countries.”

The fact that boys’ chores appear to be more profitable makes the childhood chore gap even more disturbing. Turns out, parents tend to value the work that boys typically do more highly than the work girls do. A website that helps parents teach children how to earn, spend and save responsibly, pktmny, found “significant divides based on gender, age and the nature of the task being undertaken by each child,” according to Louise Hill, COO of the company. For example, mowing the lawn generally garners higher allowance wages than folding laundry. Shoveling a snow-covered driveway might yield more cash in hand than emptying the dishwasher."

I really credit H's housekeeping skills to his growing up with two brothers and a mother who refused to do all the work for them. She taught them everything from cleaning to ironing to how to sew on a button "so they would never need to depend on a woman to do things for them." For this, she has my everlasting gratitude, especially since this was definitely not the norm in their culture back then (probably not so much now either).

My H knows not to ask me if he needs something ironed. He knows how to do it and where the supplies are, and more importantly he knows that I don't buy clothes that require ironing since I hate it so much.

[mrsukyankee]

This is one of the reasons why I hate when parents give money for chores. Give an allowance and just have chores be an expectation. And ROTATE chores. The one thing I'm glad my parents did was teach both my brother and I how to do it all - from mowing the lawn to cleaning clothing to cooking.

[tacosforlife]

OMG that Molinari is talking about gender parity. The guy who had an affair with a consultant who was making hiring and firing recommendations. Also, JCI is VERY male. They couldn't find anyone better to talk to?