Women make up approximately 52% percent of the world’s population and are an important component in the workforce as well as purchasers of all types of goods and services. Understanding women’s role in society and their circumstances allows us to make better management and marketing decisions. In particular, putting gender issues on the agenda will:
The stereotype that men maintain the women and children has undergone
a change WORLD WIDE
BARRIERS TO GENDER EQUALITY IN BUSINESS:
The most powerful lever of change in gender conditioning is education. As women become more educated, they become trained for a greater number of jobs. Throughout this century, women have made great strides in education. In the U.S., for example, a greater proportion of women enter higher education than men. The trend towards educating women is found throughout the industrialized nations. Indeed, equality in literacy has been achieved in the industrialized nations.
In poorer, less developed nations, the outlook is not so good (read: gopher://gopher.unicef.org/00/.cefdata/.pon94/chap7) . Women make up 2/3's of illiterate adults in the developing world. When a family can afford to educate only one child, it is frequently the male child that is educated because he will look after the parents in their old age. For the same reason, male children take precedence over female children in matters of food and medicine.Education is important for a variety of reasons not directly related to job acquisition. An educated woman, for example, almost always has more allure and status in the eyes of her husband, her family and her community if she is educated. She is likely to have more awareness, more opportunities, more choice and more confidence. Educated women are also less susceptible to bullying and intimidation. Education also makes gender conditioning of the next generation so that they are less likely to discriminate.
Gender Inequality in Literacy sub-Saharan Africa 67% Middle East and North Africa 67% South Asia 54% East Asia and Pacific 81% Central American and Caribbean 93% South America 97% Industrialized Countries 100%
Types of Jobs
Occupational segregation by sex is extensive and pervasive and is one of the most important and enduring aspects of labor markets around the world. It is estimated that 80% of all jobs are gender stereotyped. (Read https://www.ilo.org/public/english/235press/pr/1997/35.htm)
Why job segregation an important issue?
Wage differentials between male and female workers exist in all industrialized nations, but the size of the wage differentials varies according to country. More recently, countries and companies have been looking at gender equality in employment by examining comparable worth. When comparable worth principles are violated, there is said to be de facto discrimination.
3 checkpoints:
Great Britain | Equal Pay Act 1970; Sex Discrimination Act 1975 |
Canada | Canadian Human Rights Act (1978); Equal Pay Program (1984) |
U.S. | Equal Pay Cat of 1963; Title VII (1964); Fair Labor Standards Act; Executive Order 11246 (1965) |
Australia | Industrial Arbitration Act; Sex discrimination Act (1984) |
New Zealand | Government Service Equal Pay Act (1961); Equal Pay Act (1972) |
Portugal | Portuguese Constitution (1976); Legislative Degree No 392/79 and No 426/88. |
Japan | Japanese Constitution (1946) Labor Standards Act of 1947; National Public Services Act; Local Public Services Act; Law Concerning the Promotion of Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment and Other Welfare Measures for Women Workers (but there are no criminal penalties for an employer who does not comply with the law) |
Greece | Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome; Greek Constitution 1975; Law 1414/84 |
Denmark | Danish Equal Pay Act no. 237 (1986) |
Sweden | Swedish Act of Equality between Men and Women at Work (1980); |
Finland | Equality Act, Section 8 |
Turkey | Turkish Labor Act No 931; Turkish Constitution; Turkish Labor Act 1475 |
Belgium | EEC Equal Pay Directive |
Insufficient quality of child-care (to be discussed in later chapters)
Dual roles—
Read "Working Parents Get Good Marks From Children" Post and Courier, Sept. 6, 1999.
Pregnancy Dismissals
In the U.S. (and other countries) it is illegal to discriminate based on pregnancy issues.
All of the industrial nations except Australia and the USA now provide paid and job protected maternity leave for employed women. The actual rate of pay varies between 50 and 100% of salary. In some countries, paternity leave is also provided for.
In some nations, the idea of maternity leave alone appears to be becoming outdated. The emphasis is switching, especially in the Nordic countries, to the idea of parental leave, ranging from 6 months to 3 years at varying rates of pay. The nations listed with a asterisk below guarantee this additional leave, paid and job protected, to enable parents to spend more time with their children during the early years.
The U.S. has recently enacted a bill giving women the right to 12 weeks unpaid but job protected maternity leave.
Out and out gender discrimination does occur. Despite
a number of structural differences, only 12-22% of wage differentials can
be explained by differences between jobs.
WHAT CAN A COMPANY DO?
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Sexual harassment is not simply basing employment on an individual’s acceptance or rejection of sexual advances. Another form of sexual harassment is the creation of an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. In the U.S., an employer can be charged with sexual harassment as a result of the actions of employees, vendors and even customers.
Sexual harassment has become a major concern to employers world-wide as they have become aware of its financial, environmental and morale costs in the workplace.
Because sexual harassment involves actions and behavior it is often defined culturally i.e. what is considered sexual harassment and what is condoned vary from country to country. In the U.S., and in most of the developed nations, sexual harassment complaints are on the rise and they are being taken seriously. This is not true for all countries. In Moscow, for example, many employers require secretaries to be attractive, under 25 and to sleep with their bosses. Indeed, in Russia, 71% of the unemployed are women. If a women wants a job, she must be young and pretty and she is expected to use her allure to win contract for her boss.
When working in foreign countries, American women often face sexual harassment by being subjected to innuendo and sexual remarks from foreigners. Foreign men are also more likely to comment about the physical attributes of women. Such behavior is not tolerated in the U.S. but it might be in foreign cultures.
The most common and easiest to identify is achieved
power abuses. In this situation, it is the supervisor who might use
their power to sexually harass someone. Women rarely use achieved power
to sexually harass male employees. While men use achieved power to receive
sex, women can use sex to obtain achieved power. Both behaviors are
inappropriate.
Ascribed power is an attributed characteristic to which someone has no control such as gender and ethnicity. Almost all research shows that men are given more power than women simply because of their gender. This natural type of power allows subordinate men to harass female bosses. Likewise, white people are given more power than minorities. In these situations, the harassed individual’s complaint is usually viewed with skepticism because the victim had the formal power to stop the harassment. Moreover, victims tend not to report the harassment because their accusation will be challenged or the victim fears that the harasser will be unduly disciplined.What do the U.S. Courts say?Situational power occurs in one situation but not another. Numbers and territory are primary sources of situational power in the workplace. Abuse of this power is usually motivated by the person wanting to retain a homogenous work setting—wanting the ‘outsider to leave’. It takes the form of focusing on the person’s gender to define him/her as different, not competent or not to be taken seriously. It is not unusual to find a number of employees joining in to harass the outsider. It is most frequently found in nontraditional setting: construction, fire fighting, police work, upper management, nursing, teaching, clerical work, etc. This type of harassment is considered hostile environment.
First, if a supervisor’s harassment results in the victim suffering a tangible adverse employment action such as discharge, demotion, or undesirable reassignment, the employer is liable for damages to the victim.
Second, even if the victim has not suffered a job loss, the employer is still generally liable for the harassment because the company and the supervisor are in a position of power.
Part 2 : Women and International Business
According to recent research by KPMG Peat Marwick, most multinational companies feel it is increasingly important to send people on international assignments but the availability of people who are will to accept global assignment is not growing at the same rapid rate.
As already demonstrated, there can be great differences in gender equality especially in the role women take, the value placed on women and the amount of respect shown to women. Research, however, has shown that women can work successfully in cultures where the status of women is considerably lower than in their own.
Myths (source Adler 1993)
- Ask women (women need to be more vocal in their requests for international assignments)
- Offer flexible benefits packages - especially with regard to working spouses and education of children
- Give women the opportunity to succeed by supporting them
Source Taylor and Napier 1996
COUNTRY | NO OF WEEKS | % OF SALARY |
Sweden* | 52/65 | 80/FIXED |
Finland* | 18/46 | 80 |
Denmark* | 28 | 100 |
Iceland | 26 | Fixed |
New Zealand | 26 | Fixed |
Italy | 22 | 8050 |
Greece | 21 | 100/80 |
Norway* | 6/18 | 90/fixed |
United Kingdom | 6/18 | 100 |
Austria* | 16 | 84 |
France* | 16 | 100 |
Luxumburg | 16 | 100 |
Spain | 16 | 75 |
Canada* | 15 | 60 |
Germany* | 14 | 100 |
Japan* | 14 | 60 |
Belgium | 14 | 75/79 |
Ireland | 14 | 70 |
Portugal | 13 | 100 |
Switzerland | 10 | Varies |
Australia | 0 | 0 |
United States | 0 | 0 |