Diversity & Inclusion

Recruiting and retaining a work force that is diverse in gender, race and other markers of difference provides businesses and organizations with innovative ideas and a competitive edge. Diversity provides a significant advantage in competing for clients, customers and suppliers in today’s global marketplace. NCRW is supporting diversity efforts by recommending best practices for recruiting, retaining and advancing the careers of women, particularly women of color. This research extends to examining the benefits of diversity in leadership and how women’s participation improves decision-making. NCRW is helping companies to assess their workplace environments and identify barriers to inclusion: from practices, to policies, to the informal culture of organizations. NCRW’s Corporate Circle supports companies in their efforts to strengthen and advance policies that boost diversity and inclusion.

Women and Education: Making Inequity Visible

Teaser:

Kathy Krendl, President of Otterbein University, argues that today's woman is not only faced with many barriers -- fewer educational opportunities, lower wage prospects, higher unemployment numbers -- but is also faced with a tangible lack of resources.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

Better opportunities for women start with education. In Ohio, less than one in four women have a bachelor's degree. Ohio ranks 39th out of 50 states for the percentage of women with four or more years of college, according to the American Community Survey three-year estimates. Statistics forAfrican-American women are even worse. Less than 15 percent of African American women 25 and older have earned a bachelor's degree or higher in Ohio.

There is a direct correlation between educational attainment and poverty. Despite women losing 83.8 percent of the public positions eliminated between July 2009 and January 2011, The National Women's Law Center found the hardest hit demographic remains women without a high school diploma. Roughly 15 percent of all women without a high school diploma are unemployed, according to the Department of Labor. The unemployment rate of women who hold a bachelor's degree is 4.7 percent. We must do a better job of informing women about the benefits of an education and providing them access to achieve their academic goals.

But even when women achieve their academic goals, the workplace doesn't reward them with adequate pay. In Ohio, women are worth only 74 cents to a man's dollar, according to a report issued by the Central Ohio Leadership Census. That places Ohio 35th nationally. And of the 11 million Americans who earned $100,000 or more between 2006-2008, only 302,000 individuals achieved that level of income in Ohio. Less than 1.8 percent of women who worked full time achieved that level of pay compared to 7.6 percent of men. It is shameful and disturbing that our society continues to discriminate against and devalue the contributions made by women.

Such unexamined prejudice also contributes to the fact that women and girls are now the majority of individuals living in poverty in every state, including the District of Columbia. More than ever before, women and their families are showing up at local food pantries and struggling to make ends meet. We must confront the reality of 850,000 women and girls across this state who experience regular food insecurity and are unsure when -- and whether -- there will be a next meal.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-krendl/women-and-education_b_1321916.html

Date:

March 6, 2012

Affiliate:

Quotas Possible To Get More Women On Boards

Teaser:

The European Commission has moved one step closer to imposing quotas on companies to increase the number of women in boardrooms.

Editorial:

From Sky News:

EC vice-president Viviane Reding launched a three-month debate into the proposal, which could see firms forced to promote more women to executive roles.

"Personally, I am not a great fan of quotas," she said. "However, I like the results they bring."

Dr Reding's comments echo those of Prime Minister David Cameron, who said that while he does not favour quotas, they might have to be imposed if companies could not tackle the gender gap on their own.

A year ago Dr Reding had called on companies to take steps to raise the number of female board members to 30% by 2015 and 40% by 2020.

[...]

Source:

Sky News

URL:

http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16182645

Date:

March 6, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women and Graduate Management Education

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 11:36am

Data from the Graduate Management Admissions Council indicates that more women are working towards MBAs than ever before.

According to the GMAC, women accounted for 41 percent of the close to 259,000 people who took the Graduate Management Admission Test in 2011, which is a requirement for most MBA programs. The number of exams taken by women was 106,800, marking the sixth consecutive year of growth for women test-takers. This was also the third year in a row that over 100,000 women took the exam.

In the United States, women took nearly 46,000 exams -- the largest number out of any country in the world. The greatest percentage of women who took the GMAT, however, was in China, where 64 percent, or about 33,000, of those who sat for the test were women.

Nevertheless, the GMAC research also found that female MBAs who graduated from 2000 to 2011 and are working full-time earned just 81 percent of what their male counterparts did.

URL:

http://img.gmac.com/mediaroomresources/pdfs/women_and_graduate_management_education-gmac-28Feb2012.pdf

More women seeking MBAs, but pay gap persists

Teaser:

The number of women looking to attend business school hit a record high last year, but that doesn’t mean they’ll find an equitable workplace when they get out.

Editorial:

From MSNBC:

Women last year accounted for 41 percent of the 258,192 people taking the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, which is a requirement for most MBA programs. That represents the sixth consecutive year of growth in women taking the test, the Graduate Management Admissions Council said this week. The number of men taking the exam fell for a third year in a row to 151,392.

In the United States, 39 percent of test takers were women, but in east Asia, women led the way. In China 64 percent of test takers were women. Overall about 117,000 test takers were Americans, compared with about 58,000 who were from east and southwast Asia.

In the United States “we’re not seeing the women in business schools that would be expected,” given that women now make up half the U.S. workforce, said Michelle Sparkman Renz, director of research for the council. It’s unclear why more women aren’t flocking to U.S. business schools, but clearly the corporate world has yet to embrace women in management.

[...]

Source:

MSNBC

URL:

http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/01/10542160-more-women-seeking-mbas-but-pay-gap-persists

Date:

March 5, 2012

Affiliate:

How NPR Became a Hotbed for Female Journalists

Teaser:

You’re familiar with the stereotype: humorless, ever so slightly imperious, Birkenstock-wearing brown-rice enthusiasts. These are the women of NPR, forever etched into America’s collective consciousness by Alec Baldwin, Ana Gasteyer, and Molly Shannon in a classic Saturday Night Live skit known as “Schweddy Balls.” Despite its reputation for earnestness, the organization seems to be in on the joke. Even Nina Totenberg, the longtime justice reporter whose legendarily soothing voice almost surely provided inspiration, laughs about it. “I like that Saturday Night Live makes fun of us,” she says. “It’s better to be noticed than not noticed at all.”

Editorial:

From The Daily Beast/Newsweek:

Today Totenberg is the dean of the Supreme Courtpress corps; NPR progamming reaches an audience of nearly 23 million—a 70 percent increase from 1998, the year the skit first aired—and has more foreign bureaus than any other American broadcast network. But it hasn’t always been that way, and Totenberg knows what it means to go unnoticed. She joined the fledgling broadcaster in the early 1970s, when it was carried by just 90 stations (that number has since increased a hundredfold). It was a period in which most news outlets were openly hostile to the very notion of hiring a female correspondent. “All of us have stories of being told, outright, ‘We don’t hire women’ or ‘We have our woman,’” she says.

In part, Totenberg says, NPR had no choice: salaries were so low that few men were willing to take jobs there. The inadvertent result was a roster of young female talent now considered among the most respected names in radio: Totenberg, Cokie Roberts, Linda Wertheimer, and Susan Stamberg, a group affectionately known as the “Founding Mothers.” “It was a novel experience, being looked after [by colleagues] and not being hit on,” Totenberg says. The Old Girls’ Club, as she calls them, sat in a corner of the newsroom the men referred to as “the fallopian jungle,” and swiftly became the broadcaster’s earliest stars. In 1972, Stamberg became the first woman in the country to anchor a daily national news show.

[...]

Source:

The Daily Beast / Newsweek

URL:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/03/04/how-npr-became-a-hotbed-for-female-journalists.html

Date:

March 5, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Status of Women and Girls in Minnesota

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 11:02am

According to new research by the Women's Foundation of Minnesota in partnership with the University of MN Humphrey School's Center on Women & Public Policy, Minnesota women and girls continue to face disparate outcomes in comparison to men and boys in multiple measures of economics,safety, health, and leadership. it also shows that the disparities are even greater for women of color, rural women, LBT (lesbian, bisexual, transgender) women, and women with disabilities.

URL:

http://www.wfmn.org/research/?51

Catalyzing Growth in the Women-Run Small and Medium Enterprises Sector (SMEs) Evaluating the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Initiative

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 1:56am

ICRW conducted an evaluation of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative in India to identify early results of the program on women entrepreneurs’ business skills, practices and growth. 10,000 Women, launched in 2008, aims to provide 10,000 women who run small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with high-quality business and management skills training. Research shows that these women are often underserved, in terms of access to business or management training and entrepreneurial networks, despite the enormous potential they have to help grow economies in developing countries.

This brief presents a summary of ICRW’s initial evaluation of the India program, which shows how the 10,000 Women program — in combination with a number of other factors — is making a difference in graduates’ businesses and lives.

URL:

http://www.icrw.org/publications/catalyzing-growth-women-run-small-and-medium-enterprises-sector-smes

Member Organization:

International Center for Research on Women

Connectivity: How Mobile Phones, Computers and the Internet Can Catalyze Women's Entrepreneurship India: A Case Study

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 1:50am

This study examines how access to and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are transforming the economic opportunities available to poor and low-income women in India by promoting their entrepreneurial activity. What types of initiatives support small and medium enterprises for women, and through which ICTs? What factors shape a positive connection between ICTs and women’s business success? What barriers have been lifted and what opportunities realized? What types of impact are ICT-based initiatives having on women, their businesses and beyond? What promising pathways are being shaped, and what channels have yet to be explored?

URL:

http://www.icrw.org/publications/connectivity-how-mobile-phones-computers-and-internet-can-catalyze-womens-entrepreneurs

Member Organization:

International Center for Research on Women

Investing in Female Entrepreneurs: The Impact of Goldman Sachs’ “10,000 Women”

Teaser:

In 2008, Goldman Sachs launched 10,000 Women, a $100 million philanthropic initiative, which at the time, was the largest in Goldman’s history. The goal of the five year program is to provide business and management training to 10,000 underserved female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Editorial:

From the Council on Foreign Relations:

Four years ago this month, Goldman Sachs invited me to attend the launch of 10,000 Women, a $100 million philanthropic initiative, which at the time, was the largest in Goldman’s history. The goal of the five year program is to provide business and management training to 10,000 underserved female entrepreneurs in developing countries. Why? Goldman’s own research (and that of many others) shows that female education is a driver of macroeconomic growth. Moreover, there was (and still very much is) a stark need to expand access to business education for women in emerging markets. When Goldman launched 10,000 Women, there were only 2,600 women attending MBA programs in all of Africa, a continent of 900 million people. Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has estimated that if African women were given equal access as men to vocational training and technology, the continent’s economy would expand by at least 40 percent.

10,000 Women’s focus is very much on nurturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a sector of the economy with significant economic growth and employment potential. Aninteresting report from the International Finance Corporation notes that while there are roughly “8 to 10 million formal women-owned SMEs in emerging markets (representing 31 to 38 percent of all SMEs in emerging markets), the average growth rate of women’s enterprises is significantly lower than the average growth rate for SMEs run by men.” The report identifies several factors that have hindered the growth of women-owned businesses, including: institutional and regulatory issues, lack of access to finance, relatively low rates of business education, risk aversion, concentration of women’s businesses in slower growth sectors, and the burden of household management responsibilities. 10,000 Women addresses each of these issues, teaching its graduates how to recognize and navigate their legal environment, how better to access loans, prepare business plans geared for higher growth, and juggle a business with their family life. While the program does not provide credit directly, it has formed several public-private partnerships to do so. In Liberia, it is working with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; in Tanzania with the Government of Denmark, CRDB Bank, and the U.S. State Department; in Peru with the Inter-American Development Bank and Mibanco.

[...]

Source:

Council on Foreign Relations

URL:

http://blogs.cfr.org/coleman/2012/03/01/investing-in-female-entrepreneurs-the-impact-of-goldman-sachs-10000-women/

Date:

March 2, 2012

Affiliate:

Solutions to Recruit Technical Women

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 02/28/2012 - 11:53am

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology released a new report that outlines four key areas where companies should focus their recruitment efforts to increase access to a range of technical talent available in a highly competitive environment. Solutions to Recruit Technical Women is the first in a series of reports offering solutions companies can employ to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women.

URL:

http://anitaborg.org/files/Anita-Borg-Inst-Solutions-To-Recruit-Technical-Women.pdf

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What We Do

NCRW is a network of leading university and community based research, policy, and advocacy centers with a growing global reach dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls. We also have a Corporate Circle comprised of senior diversity professionals from leading U.S. and global member companies and a Presidents Circle of college and university leaders who share our commitment. NCRW harnesses the collective power of its network to provide knowledge, analysis, and thought leadership on issues ranging from reducing women’s poverty to building a critical mass of women’s leadership across sectors.

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