October 5, 2015
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and McKinsey & Company released a report containing the latest digest of what seems like a bottomless trove of sad data about women at work.
"Women in the Workplace" sourced data from 118 companies and almost 30,000 employees, hoping to illuminate why inequalities persist between men and women in corporate spaces.
October 5, 2015
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and McKinsey & Company released a report containing the latest digest of what seems like a bottomless trove of sad data about women at work.
"Women in the Workplace" sourced data from 118 companies and almost 30,000 employees, hoping to illuminate why inequalities persist between men and women in corporate spaces.
Published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, a summary of the study did not mince words. "At the current pace of progress, we are more than 100 years away from gender equality in the C-suite," Sandberg writes, referring to the most upper-level management positions. "If NASA launched a person into space today, she could soar past Mars, travel all the way to Pluto and return to Earth 10 times before women occupy half of C-suite offices. Yes, we're that far away."
For all the modest gains women have made over the past several years, the Lean In author notes that women "remain underrepresented at every corporate level." And lest she incite a million more editorials about the professional disadvantages with which mothers must contend, she was quick to point out that "research shows that even women without children cite stress and pressure as their main issue." These concerns only continue to mount. While women and men in entry-level and mid-management positions were found to be more or less equally ambitious in their careers, women become less and less interested over time and pass on promotions to avoid compounded anxieties. As younger women rise, they find fewer female mentors and have weaker relationships with male executives who could advise them on how to advance their careers.
Should they ever to make it to the top, women in senior positions are more dissatisfied than men. Only 28 percent of them say they are "very happy." And it's no wonder: Compared with their male peers, senior-level women are about half as likely to say that they are consulted on important decisions and are less likely to feel recognized for their contributions." No matter how valued they are at home, working women are "60 percent more likely than working men to have a partner who works full-time." Women of every generation "still do a majority of childcare."
The playground dynamic that tells young boys to lead and girls to be nice "carries over into the workplace," Sandberg writes in the Journal, "where women walk a tightrope between being liked and being respected—and men do not."
"We reached the moon in eight years of concerted effort – not 80," she concludes. "Let's bring the same urgency to this mission." It would be one giant leap for womankind.
Courtesy: ELLE DECOR
