ILO DOCUMENTS >>

Linda Wirth. Breaking through the glass ceiling. Women in management. Update 2004 ILO: Geneva

 

Full text pdf format (ILO website)

This publication is an update of certain sections of the original Breaking through the Glass Ceiling: Women in Management by Linda Wirth. This update contains the most recent statistics concerning women in management, which are derived from the ILO’s Yearbook of Labour Statistics (2003), and statistical data from governmental organizations, United Nations organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and research institutes. Akemi Serizawa collected and analyzed the statistical data and developed the charts. Prue Hopkins carried out additional Internet-based research, and compiled and elaborated on the information and further developed recommendations based on the analysis. Adrienne Cruz provided valuable comments and editing and Helena Leslie did the proof reading and layout. Irene Mbinkar-Gondo gave secretarial support, and Brigitte Honma helped in the acquisition of statistics.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. WOMEN IN PROFESSIONAL JOBS
Occupational sex segregation in professional work

3. WOMEN IN MANAGERIAL JOBS
Women at the top
Women leaders in politics

4. EARNINGS GAPS

5. WOMEN IN SELF-EMPLOYMENT

6. WOMEN IN TERTIARY EDUCATION

7. PERCEPTIONS OF WOMEN AS MANAGERS
Wanting it all
Barriers

8. ILO ACTION
International labour standards
Raising awareness/capacity building on gender equality for constituents
Increasing employability of women workers/entrepreneurship development.
Strengthening capacity in the ILO
9. CONCLUSIONS

10. DEFINITION OF TERMS

NOTES

-----------------------------

Introduction

Since the book Breaking through the Glass Ceiling: Women in Management was published in 2001, ILO has received a number of requests for the most recent data on the situation of women in professional and managerial jobs. In response to this demand, it was decided to publish an updated version of Chapter 2: “Women in Professional and Managerial Jobs” of the original book, using data available between 2001 and 2003. Various sources of information were used in the compilation of the book, notably the ILO’s Yearbook of Labour Statistics (2003). Data was also collected from governmental organizations, United Nations organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and research institutes.

This updated version of Chapter 2 of the book does not presume to tackle the subject in as much depth as the original book. It aims to present the new statistical data together with various research results and material gathered from a review of the literature on the Internet, illustrating some of the institutional and attitudinal prejudices that continue to hamper women’s progress into professional and management jobs and drawing attention to some of the schemes being instigated in support of women managers. However, the review was to a certain extent limited by the lack of data from countries that do not systematically aggregate precise information on women in professional and managerial positions or that have restricted access to the Internet.

The overall employment situation of women has not evolved significantly since 2001. The ILO’s Global Employment Trends (2003) reported that women continue to have lower labour market participation rates, higher unemployment rates and significant pay differences compared to men. Women represent over 40 per cent of the global labour force, approximately 70 per cent of women in developed countries and 60 per cent in developing countries. There has also been little change in their share of professional jobs in the last few years. Women occupy around 30 to 60 per cent of professional jobs in the sample of countries from which new data were available. This represents an increase of 0.7 per cent between 1996-99 and 2000-02. However, considerable variations remain between women’s share in different types of professional jobs.

Cultural and social attitudes towards what constitutes “male” or “female” jobs result in occupational segregation1, although the extent of the problem varies from country to country, and from job to job. Women are mainly concentrated in the “feminized” professions such as nursing and teaching (horizontal occupational segregation), where at the same time they remain in lower job categories than men (vertical occupational segregation). However, women continue to make small inroads into non-traditional fields such as law, information and communication technology (ICT) and computer science, and engineering, and there is evidence that employers are beginning to promote women more systematically and to introduce family-friendly policies in order to retain them. However, women who choose non-traditional jobs can face special constraints in the workplace, not least of which are isolation, limited access to mentoring and female role models, and sexual harassment.

As far as women’s share of managerial positions is concerned, the rate of progress is slow and uneven. Their share ranged between 20 and 40 per cent in 48 out of the 63 countries in the sample in 2000-02. This represents an increase in the three to five years covering 1996-99 and 2000-02 of between 1 and 5 per cent.

Men are in the majority among managers, top executives, and higher levels of professional workers whilst women are still concentrated in the lower categories of managerial positions. Both visible and invisible rules have been constructed around the “male” norm, which women sometimes find difficult to accommodate: male and female colleagues and customers do not automatically see women as equal with men, women tend to have to work much harder than men to prove themselves, and sometimes they have to adapt to “male” working styles and attitudes more than necessary. Furthermore, women tend to be excluded from the informal networks dominated by men at the workplace, which are vital for career development. The problem is compounded by employers’ assumption that women, unlike men, are not able to devote their full time and energy to paid
work because of their family responsibilities. Consequently, women are not given as many opportunities as men to do the more demanding responsible jobs, which would advance their careers. However, there is evidence to show that once women attain the upper levels of management, attitudes towards them are not much different to those towards men.

Full text pdf format (ILO website)

 

The Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development in Vocational Training (ILO/Cinterfor)
Avda. Uruguay 1238 - Montevideo - Uruguay - Tel: (5982) 908 6023 - 902 0557 - 908 0545 - Fax: (5982) 902 1305
webmaster@cinterfor.org.uy

Copyright © 1996-2008 International Labour Organisation (ILO) - Disclaimer