U.S. Women Make More Progress In Management Than Women Abroad.

Although women in the United States hold only a small percentage of executive management positions, they have made more progress than women in other countries, according to an International Labor Organization (ILO) report, “Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling: Women in Management.” The report examines the changing role of women in business and government in more than 70 countries, obstacles to their career development, and steps to improve opportunities for women and promote gender equality. Women obtained 5.1 percent of executive management positions in the 500 largest U.S. companies in 1999, compared to 2.4 percent in 1996. The most recent available data from various surveys for other countries showed that the percentage of executive management positions held by women are as low as 1.3 percent in Australia (1999), 4.7 percent in France (1997), 3 percent in Germany (1995), 3 percent in Brazil (1991), and 3.6 percent in the United Kingdom (1998).

A comparison between the United States and Canada in 1999 shows that a higher proportion of U.S. companies have more than one female corporate officer (56 percent) than Canadian companies (26.6 percent). Moreover, 43.6 percent of Canadian companies had no female corporate officers, while 21 percent of U.S. companies had no female officers.

In spite of women’s gains in U.S. management jobs, there are only four women CEOs in the Fortune 500 and eight women CEOs in the Fortune 1000, according to Catalyst, an organization working to advance women in business. Linda Wirth, the report’s author and senior gender specialist in the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality, says that this pattern is repeated in other countries. Among the many causes, Wirth says, is the small number of women in management positions that lead to the top, in particular those with profit- and-loss or revenue-generating responsibilities. In 1999, men in the United States held 93.8 percent of corporate line jobs leaving only 6.2 percent for women. Canada yielded almost identical statistics: 93.6 percent for men compared with 6.4 percent for women.

“Women in these countries are experiencing not so much a ‘glass ceiling,’ but ‘glass walls,’ where women are not being trained for and offered mid-level positions that prepare them for the top,” Wirth said.

The “glass walls” phenomenon also holds true in the United Kingdom, where a 1998 survey showed that women are more likely to be personnel managers (50 percent), actuarial, insurance and pensions managers (44 percent) and marketing managers (38 percent). There are very few research and development managers (3.4 percent) and manufacturing and production managers (3.5 percent) who are women.

Another factor that prevents women from rising to the top in corporations is the predominance of “male values” and “gender roles,” according to the ILO report. In a 1995 survey of 355 personnel managers and female bank managers in the European Union, published in 1999, respondents ranked the dominance of male values as the biggest obstacle to recruiting and promoting women to management positions (68.8 percent) and family obligations as the second biggest (45.8 percent).

Although education has been a powerful tool for improving the status of women, there is a big pay gap between sexes with the same educational level. Citing 1995-1996 data from 17 industrialized countries in an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study published in 1998, the ILO report shows that the average annual earnings of university-educated women is lower than that of men in all 17 countries. In the category of women aged 30 to 44, New Zealand had the largest gap, with women’s earnings at 38 percent of men’s. The smallest difference was in Canada, where women earned 73 percent as much as men. In the category of women aged 55 to 64, women in Italy earned the lowest percentage (37 percent) and women in Hungary the highest (81 percent). The United States tied for 11th place with Denmark in the younger group (30-44 years old), with women earning 58 percent as much as men. In the older group (55-64 years old), the United States ranked 15th, with women’s pay at 52 percent of men’s earnings.

When women hit the “glass ceiling” or encounter jobs that make it difficult for them to balance work and life, they often strike out on their own, the report found. By 1999, 38 percent of all firms in the United States were run by women. In Sweden, women owned 20 percent of companies started up in 1996. In Australia women accounted for 35 percent of the 1.3 million small business owners in 1997, and the growth rate of female small business owners from 1995 to 1997 was three times that for men.

The report says that one of the ways to break the “glass ceiling” and improve women’s opportunities in the labor market is to develop gender- sensitive human resource strategies, including networking, career tracking, mentoring and succession planning. Unbiased recruitment and promotion procedures and programs that allow a better balance between work and family are also vital in attracting and retaining skilled professional women.

“There is a growing awareness and mounting evidence that gender equality boosts enterprise productivity, spurs economic growth and improves the welfare of families,” said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. “Responsibility for equal opportunity cannot rest in the hands of isolated organizations or enterprises. Governments, employers’ organizations, trade unions, civil society organizations and international organizations all need to move in the same direction and actively promote gender equality in the work force.”

For more information at http://www.ilo.org