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The ‘glass ceiling’ may have developed cracks, but unless restrictions to certain kinds of managerial jobs are removed, climbing up the corporate ladder will remain a challenge for women, says a new ILO report.
Positive linkToday, women hold over 40 per cent of jobs and more and more are in senior and middle-level managerial positions, but only 5 per cent of CEOs across the world are women, says the report, Women in Business and Management: Gaining Momentum , brought out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which surveyed 104 countries. This is despite several studies showing a positive link between female leadership and business performance.
“The glass ceiling that prevents women from reaching top positions in business and management may be showing cracks, but it is still there,” Guy Ryder, Direcrtor-General, ILO, said in a statement, adding that “companies are losing out on women’s contribution to their bottom line.”
In India, only 4 per cent CEOs are women in the top 100 public-listed companies compared with 5.6 per cent in China. Even in terms of the number of women occupying corporate board seats, less than 5 per cent are women in India, compared with between 5-10 per cent in China.
Gender stereotypesReflecting age-old gender stereotypes overshadowing women’s contribution to businesses, the report found that in developing countries, such as India, there was a growing trend of a ‘glass wall’, wherein women were clustered in certain kinds of managerial jobs, such as human resource, public relations, communications, administration and so on.
As a consequence, women may “go up the ladder” only to a certain point, as the managerial functions they exercise are located on the sides of the pyramid, says the report.
In 77 per cent — or 80 of the 104 countries for which ILO data was available — the proportion of managers who were women had increased. In 23 countries, the rise was by 7 per cent or more. However, in 23 countries, women’s share of management actually fell, despite their increasing labour force participation and their higher levels of education.
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