22 Apr A look to professional equality between women and men: paradoxes, issues, causes, levers
Anna Covino Scheidecker – Italian and French HR CSR expert – HR Management Master Essec Executive Education and Diversity Management Paris Dauphine University
While according to the World Bank and the ILO, women represent more nearly 40% of the world’s active population and 49% of them participate in the labor market, also that, for the same generation, in many countries girls are more graduated then men with higher performances, women’s professional trajectories may be marked by periods of fragility and risk of exclusion from the labor market, and professional inequalities persist between men and women.
Equality between men and women is a key issue, both from a demographic, economic and societal point of view.
The education and employment of the female population indeed boosts a country’s productivity and economic growth. According to UNESCO, some countries are reporting a shortfall of more than $ 1 billion per year because the level of education of girls was lower than that of boys.
According to the 2021 edition of the World Bank report “Women, Business, Law” on average in the world, women only enjoy three quarters of the rights that are recognized for men.
COVID-19 pandemic has even created new challenges for the health, safety and economic security of women through the world (access to schooling, job retention, and others issues).
The majority of reforms worldwide have focused on passing or amending laws that affect women’s pay and also parental leave.
Parenthood is the area with the most room for improvement globally (payed parental leave, dismissal of pregnant women…)
Reforms are also needed to overcome restrictions women face in the type of jobs, tasks and hours they are allowed to work, which risk to keep them in lower paying jobs.
In 100 economies, legislation does not require equal pay for men and women doing work of equal value.
Achieving professional equality is a deep and important deal, that requires a joint effort by public authorities, civil society and international organizations, among others.
Interaction and impact between personal and professional life
The lives of men and women are reflected in phases that include all kinds of events related to personal and professional life. These influence each other throughout life, from career start to retirement. Links exist between the different life phases and the representation associated with them and can have an influence on professional development.
For instance, the arrival of children is in particular one of the most influential personal events, mainly for women, which notably impacts the management and development of professional careers. The most important break-up period for women is the arrival of the first and especially the second child via the use of parental education leave (In France around 500,000 households are affected each year, 98% of the leave being taken by women, although it is also open to men).
All the studies show that if certain tasks are better distributed between women and men , in particular certain tasks related to the education of children , there remains in most families a significant imbalance between the investment of man and wife.
An OECD study shows a time “frontier” at 12 months of withdrawal from the labor market. Beyond these 12 months, the risk of lasting exclusion from employment is greatly increased.
On the other hand, women who put their careers on hold to raise their child or by personal choice may wish to resume their professional activity but they encounter difficulties due to the break-up. It can be noted that at the end of this period, some women may no longer recognize themselves in their jobs and seek meaning in their activity.
Continuing to work for a significant number of women seems to be a daily struggle, which the interest of employment and the corresponding income do not justify. At this stage, there is a clear split between qualified women and low-qualified women. Indeed, for the former, continuing to work is of interest (given employment and income); in the event of parental leave, the period may be used for a change of position, a retraining, and therefore mobility.
Mobility is therefore accessible above all to qualified women, who use parental leave as an opportunity. For unskilled women, retraining is much more difficult and may involve retraining or breaking with the professional world.
The period of arrival of children is also strongly marked by a significant recourse to part-time work, over a long period. In France, paternity leave has existed since 2002. According to INSEE, 30.2% of women work part time. This rate did not exceed 5.7% for men in 2007. Men therefore remain heavily invested in work.
However, part-time poses a concern in the representation that one can have of people who choose to work part-time, and this especially for positions of responsibility. We operate in a society where the culture of presentism is very strong among executives. Being present can be compared to qualities of involvement for the company, ambition, performance.
However, more and more men are questioning work as a central element of identity. They aspire to a better balance between their professional and their personal life. They want to devote more time to their families and their children. We can say that “Men are the future of professional equality”.
These findings thus have impacts for companies. Legislation, human resources management policy have to manage and support for maternity leave returns, coordination of private and professional life, opening of eligibility criteria for high potentials, attention to salary and career evolution.
The problem of Glass ceiling
Women, despite their growing place in the world of work over the past 30 years which makes up almost half of the workforce, occupy only 27,1% of management positions in private and public sector and about only 7% of management teams in large companies.
They are still largely in the minority in decision-making positions, coming up against the “glass ceiling” phenomenon in the construction of their careers.
Glass ceiling is a meaningful metaphor : it is as if an invisible ceiling preventing women from climbing the ranks. More broadly, the term “glass ceiling” is also relevant for any job where career development is not possible.
Three main causes can explain this under-representation of women in operational functions and management functions of large companies :
- Societal causes, first linked to the illegitimacy of women (stereotypes), the sexual division of labor also linked to school and university orientation but also to the unequal sharing of family tasks and domestic.
- Organizational causes ;
- Personal choices
Levers for gender equality
The issue of inequality of opportunity has become central over the past ten years, both at the level of policies, public sector and companies, at national and international level.
We focus here on legislation, with a case study about France Legislation, because of several laws and frequent evolution, with some encouraging results.
Generally speaking, legislation can be strengthened on some major points : the phenomenon of the glass ceiling, the representation of women on top management, the salary for women in maternity leave, the balance between men and women salary for same job and qualification, and professional and personal life balance, with also a larger time for men in parenthood.
To remedy this situation, since 1983 France has implemented a legislation system about professional equality, with frequent evolutions as despite progress, professional equality is not present.
Studies and reports are launched by the government and levers are proposed. For instance the Report Grésy, Inspector of Social Affairs in France in July 2009 formulated 40 proposals concerning levers of change to be imposed in collective bargaining.
Regarding women’s access to positions of responsibility, this report recommends establishing that the administrative and supervisory committees of public enterprises and companies with more than 1,000 employees listed on the stock exchange include 40% of women within 6 years. The Copé –Zimmermann-Jacob-Tabarot Law of 20/1/2010 has the ambition of a balanced presentation of women and men, on the model of countries of Northern Europe.
Six years after the promulgation of the law, the rate of feminization of the governing bodies is at 43,6% and France seems to be a champion for this rate !
In France, since 2019, all companies with more than 250 employees and, since 2020, all those with more than 50 employees must calculate and publish their Professional Equality Index between women and men (overall score out of 100), each year to March 1.
In conclusion, public and private levers, by steps and in a constant and evolving way are certainly bringing progress in gender equality, but a long way has to be gone yet, and all efforts must continue worldwide.
Sharing good practices between companies and countries is certainly virtuous and very useful to accelerate progress.
No Comments