Barriers & Opportunities

For businesses that want to compete in the global marketplace, the development of a culturally and internationally competent work force is fundamental to success. Business professionals increasingly seek out international experience as a key to professional development and advancement. The stakes are high, therefore, to ensure that global assignments are both readily available and successful. Yet women lag behind men in taking on international transfers, and the hurdles they face – “trailing” spouses, competing family and community responsibilities, inadequate training, challenging timetables and disadvantages on repatriation – are generally more numerous for women than for men. Through NCRW’s network, professionals and HR leaders are provided with the information they need to develop a business case for change as well as best practices for developing a more diversified talent pool.

Study Points to New Path for British Women to Rise Up the Ranks

Teaser:

The Center for Talent Innovation released a new report, the “Sponsor Effect: UK” that was released last night at the House of Commons at an event keynoted by Theresa May, the British Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities.

Editorial:

From the press release:

Women enter the white-collar workforce in the UK in far greater numbers than men: 57 females for every 43 males. Yet as employees in large corporations move from entry-level to middle management, and from mid- to senior-level positions, men advance disproportionately. Across sector and occupation, women are simply not breaking through to leadership positions in numbers commensurate with their weight in the talent pool.

Why? According to the new CTI study the reason is straightforward and has nothing to do with a lack of accomplishment or ambition—or a paucity of childcare or flextime. Rather, British women tend not to have sponsors—powerful champions willing to take a bet on a young talent, go out on a limb for him/her and advocate for the next promotion. Sponsors are the people that propel and protect high performing employees through the treacherous shoals of upper management.

The study found that UK men with sponsors (as opposed to those without) are 40 percent more likely to move up the ladder at a satisfactory clip, while this “sponsor effect” for UK women is even higher—52 percent.

[...]

Source:

The Center for Talent Innovation

URL:

http://www.worklifepolicy.org/documents/Sponsor%20Effect%20UK%20-%20FINAL%20Press%20Release.pdf

Date:

June 15, 2012

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Gender Differences in the Salaries of Physician Researchers

Teaser:

Researchers find that, all other things equal, female physicians still make approximately $12,000 per year less than their male counterparts.

Editorial:

Context It is unclear whether male and female physician researchers who perform similar work are currently paid equally.

Objectives To determine whether salaries differ by gender in a relatively homogeneous cohort of physician researchers and, if so, to determine if these differences are explained by differences in specialization, productivity, or other factors.

Design and Setting A US nationwide postal survey was sent in 2009-2010 to assess the salary and other characteristics of a relatively homogeneous population of physicians. From all 1853 recipients of National Institutes of Health (NIH) K08 and K23 awards in 2000-2003, we contacted the 1729 who were alive and for whom we could identify a mailing address.

Participants The survey achieved a 71% response rate. Eligibility for the present analysis was limited to the 800 physicians who continued to practice at US academic institutions and reported their current annual salary.

Main Outcome Measures A linear regression model of self-reported current annual salary was constructed considering the following characteristics: gender, age, race, marital status, parental status, additional graduate degree, academic rank, leadership position, specialty, institution type, region, institution NIH funding rank, change of institution since K award, K award type, K award funding institute, years since K award, grant funding, publications, work hours, and time spent in research.

Results The mean salary within our cohort was $167 669 (95% CI, $158 417-$176 922) for women and $200 433 (95% CI, $194 249-$206 617) for men. Male gender was associated with higher salary (+$13 399; P = .001) even after adjustment in the final model for specialty, academic rank, leadership positions, publications, and research time. Peters-Belson analysis (use of coefficients derived from regression model for men applied to women) indicated that the expected mean salary for women, if they retained their other measured characteristics but their gender was male, would be $12 194 higher than observed.

Conclusion Gender differences in salary exist in this select, homogeneous cohort of mid-career academic physicians, even after adjustment for differences in specialty, institutional characteristics, academic productivity, academic rank, work hours, and other factors.

Source:

JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association

URL:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1182859

Date:

June 13, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women in Finance: Focus on board diversity is the tip of the iceberg

Teaser:

The findings of the fifth annual Financial News Women in Finance survey are sobering: Of the 650 female respondents to the survey, all of whom work in the financial services industry, two thirds said their gender made it harder for them to succeed and a similar proportion said they felt they needed to work harder than male counterparts in order to be viewed at the same level of achievement by managers.

Editorial:

From Financial News:

Ruth Grant, a litigation partner and co-chair of the diversity committee at law firm Hogan Lovells, said: “There is a mismatch between what’s being done and outcomes. There is a difference between management having projects and structures that they put in place and actually embedding those ideas into the corporate culture and how the business makes them part of the daily life and DNA of an organisation.”

The survey results are a timely reminder that, while top-level management of financial firms is largely convinced that change is necessary and has begun to implement programmes, there is still more that needs to be done. The challenge, particularly in depressed market conditions, is keeping gender diversity on the priority list.

Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management and founder of the 30% Club, which has had notable successes encouraging chairmen to bring more women into board roles, said: “There has been a very long, slow burn over the understanding of gender imbalance, but a sharp pick-up and growing momentum for change over the past 18 months. The financial services sector, and especially bigger companies, are trying very hard, partly in an attempt to rehabilitate their reputation. It is a paradigm shift for many people.”

Financial firms do appear to be making more of an effort. This year, 38% of survey respondents said their company had no diversity programme or women’s networking forum, less than the 46% who responded similarly last year. Whether the shift is due to more companies launching programmes is arguable but, certainly, there is increased awareness and communication within firms to promote uptake of such initiatives.

[...]

Source:

Financial News

URL:

http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2012-06-11/focus-on-board-diversity-is-tip-of-the-iceberg?mod=sectionheadlines-PE-AM

Date:

June 12, 2012

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Why There Are So Few Women In Congress

Teaser:

According to political scientists Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon, there are five main reasons women still hold less than 17% of the seats in Congress.

Editorial:

From U.S. News and World Report:

You'd think that since 1916—the year a woman was first elected to U.S. Congress—there would have been some serious progress.

Women in the workforce, after all, have been on a steady rise.

Not so in Congress, where women hold less than 17 percent of seats to this day, according to the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics. In 2010, the number of women elected to the House actually declined.

[See: Latest political cartoons.]

"Politics is lagging behind society," says Barbara Palmer, associate professor of political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and co-author of the upcoming book Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change.

Palmer and Southern Methodist University professor Dennis Simon have been studying the political glass ceiling for over a decade. Voters, they said, mostly aren't to blame for the lack of progress. But they shared five other very real reasons more women aren't in Washington:

[...]

Source:

U.S. News and World Report

URL:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/06/08/why-there-are-so-few-women-in-congress

Date:

June 12, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

The Catalyst Pyramid: U.S. Women in Business

Teaser:

Infographic showing percentage of women in the workforce vs. different management positions.

Source:

Catalyst

URL:

http://www.catalyst.org/publication/132/us-women-in-business

Date:

June 8, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

The Women and People of Color Who Invented the Internet

Teaser:

Ms. examines the whitewashing that accompanies NYT's David Streitfeld's declaration that men invented the internet.

Editorial:

From the Ms. Blog:

A Sunday New York Times article by David Streitfeld has the feminist and tech worlds up in arms. Reporting on a sexual harassment suit filed by a junior partner in a venture capital firm, Streitfeld begins by proclaiming that “MEN invented the Internet” (those CAPS are his). I came across Streitfeld’s article after a friend suggested I check out tech journalist Xeni Jardin’s Twitter feed. Jardin’sresponse to Streitfeld:

WTF: “MEN invented the internet.” I’m sorry, did NYT just breeze past half a century of women in computer technology?

Herein lies the issue: Though Streitfeld primarily covers Ellen Pao’s lawsuit, he undermines his piece by leading with an emphatic and incorrect statement about men as sole inventors of the Internet. I’m not certain if Streitfeld was being tongue-in-cheek or if he simply has a narrow view of Internet history. But his article does incite, albeit unintentionally, necessary dialogue about the roles women–and racial and ethnic minorities–have played in Internet innovation. While some apparently assume that men alone developed the Internet, a quick glance at the Internet Hall of Fame’s 2012 inaugural inductees and the Early Internet Leaders list prove otherwise. (I also recommend reading History of the Internet).

In reality, the genesis of the Internet was a collaborative effort. It took decades of developments in computer programming and network technology. We can’t let the current cult of tech fandom around “white” men–such as Steve Jobs, whom Streitfeld name checks–obscure the women and the racial and ethnic minorities from around the world who contributed to the birth of the Internet.

Source:

Ms. Magazine

URL:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/06/04/the-women-and-people-of-color-who-invented-the-internet/

Date:

June 7, 2012

Affiliate:

The Depressing Gender Gap at the Nation’s Top 71 Venture Capital Firms [SLIDESHOW]

Teaser:

Betabeat calculates the FEM, or Female Equality Metric, for the nation's largest venture capital firms.

Editorial:

From Betabeat:

Click through the slideshow for a firm-by-firm breakdown of the numbers.

[...]

The FEM Study: METHODOLOGY

All the data for assets under management comes from the National Venture Capital Association, which sent us their latest list from Thomson Reuters, current as of Q1 2012. The list included private equity firms that also do venture capital investing, which we attempted to identify and omit. However, some may still be included in the final list of 71 firms.*

Next, we went to each firm’s website and tallied up the number of partners and managing directors, noting how many were women. Obviously, the structure is different at different firms. For consistency, and to give firms the greatest benefit of the doubt, we counted anyone as a partner who had “partner” in his or her title, including venture partners, founding partners, administrative partners and other variations. We also included managing directors, who are senior partners. We did not include vice presidents, principals or associates. When partner titles were unlisted or ambiguous, we called and asked for the numbers.

We then calculated, for each firm on the list, the percentage of partners who are female. Rather than call it POPWAF, we decided to call this number the Female Equality Metric, or FEM. (At first we called it the Kleiner number, but decided to reserve that term for “number of discrimination lawsuits filed.”)

A firm with all male partners has a FEM of zero. A firm with all female partners (LOL, JK) would have a FEM of 100. If you think gender diversity is important, a low FEM is bad and a high FEM is good. If you think women should stay at the receptionist’s desk and out of the corner offices, a low FEM is good and a high FEM is bad. And if you think Silicon Valley is a meritocracy, as does Greg McAdoo of Sequoia Capital, which coincidentally has zero women partners, then you’ll probably dismiss these numbers as meaningless.

But page through this list of venture capital’s heavyweights, and it’s striking to see how few women have made it to the upper ranks. Also striking was the perfect 100 POFR, or percentage of female receptionists, at the 26 VC firms we called. We paged through team page after team page—the staff at a venture capital firm is almost universally called the “team”—where men’s faces lined the top rows and women’s faces appeared further down, if anywhere. “We have female administrative assistants,” explained one woman who picked up the phone, when asked whether any of the partners and managing directors were women.

[...]

Source:

Betabeat

URL:

http://betabeat.com/2012/05/female-partners-venture-capital-firms-fem-kleiner-perkins/

Date:

June 7, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women Kill the Buzz for Guys Who Hire, Fire Them

Teaser:

Susan Antila looks at several decades of sexual harassment in the financial industry.

Editorial:

From Bloomberg:

We’ve seen this movie before and the ending still stinks.

The sex-discrimination lawsuit by Ellen Pao against the Silicon Valley venture-capital firmKleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers may be the gender and workplace story of the moment. But let’s get one thing straight: This doesn’t describe anything that’s new. It seems to happen routinely. Just yesterday, at a hearing in London, a lawyer for Latifa Bouabdillah, a former Deutsche Bank AG director, said the woman’s male colleagues were paid bonuses “double or triple that of the claimant” for the same work.

Swap out Pao for Pamela Martens, who led the class-action “Boom-Boom Room” lawsuit against Smith Barney in the 1990s, or Allison Schieffelin, who sued Morgan Stanley in 2001, or Carla Ingraham, who sued UBS AG in 2009, and you wind up with some combination of the same old complaints: coworker come-ons, power meetings for guys only, higher pay for men and retaliation against the uppity women who have the nerve to complain.

In the venture-capital world, where you get more than the usual share of people who are prone to thinking their every experience is novel, there is shock over news that a highly qualified woman has filed a suit against a celebrity firm. But sex discrimination isn’t the iPad, folks. It’s more like the electric typewriter.

[...]

Source:

Bloomberg

URL:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/women-kill-the-buzz-for-guys-who-hire-fire-them.html

Date:

June 7, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

2012 Women’s Research—The Path Forward

Submitted by asklar on Thu, 06/07/2012 - 10:12am

An Accenture survey released as part of our 2012 celebration of International Women’s Day found that despite their current job dissatisfaction, more than two-thirds of all respondents said they do not plan to leave their current employers, with nearly the same number citing flexible work arrangements as the reason for staying put.

Most respondents said they are taking a variety of steps to actively manage their careers—including accepting a different role or responsibility, receiving more education or training, and working longer hours.

URL:

http://www.accenture.com/us-en/company/people/women/Pages/insight-womens-research-2012-path-forward.aspx

Do Men Really Earn More Than Women? [infographic]

Teaser:

PayScale calculates the gender wage gap in several different fields.

Editorial:

From PayScale:

Special Features » Infographics » Gender Pay Gap
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Do Men Really Earn More Than Women?
[infographic]

inShare
29
Yes, men do earn more than women on average, but not that much more when they work the same job and they have similar experience and abilities. Take a look at what PayScale has discovered about the gender pay gap.

See the methodology for the infographic below.

Embed this graphic. Click to select:

Methodology

Difference in Annual Pay: To compare male and female pay on a level playing field, we found the median pay for all men in a given job, as well as breakdowns of important compensable factors such as years of experience, location, education level, etc. Then, using PayScale's proprietary MarketMatch™ Algorithm, we determined what the female median pay would be using the exact same blend of compensable factors as our control male group.

What we created was an apples-to-apples comparison of what men and women make, all other factors held equal, according to actual market data. For example, the male software developer median, annual salary is $65,700, which is 4 percent more than the median female value of $63,300.

[,,,[

Source:

PayScale

URL:

http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap

Date:

June 5, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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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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