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Closing the Gender Gap



On January 1st, 2018, Iceland became the first country in the world to make pay inequality illegal. Companies that cannot prove pay equality will be fined approximately $500 for each day the gap continues to exist. Making pay inequality illegal is not unusual or unique in the world, and is the case for countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and other major players in the global economy. What is unique about this Icelandic law is the fine. Never before has there been a countrywide pay equality certification or a fine imposed should a company fail to meet that standard. There are now financial repercussions for companies that do not live up to a basic standard of equality. Every year, the World Economic Forum publishes The Global Gender Gap which ranks nations on a scale from zero to one in terms of women’s economic participation, health, educational attainment, and political empowerment. In 2017, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Rwanda and Sweden round out the top five while the Islamic Republic of Iran, Chad, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen make up the bottom. The report also suggests that women will have to wait 217 years before they earn as much as men and have equal representation in the workplace.


Rethinking the Global Gender Income Gap

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (2017), there is an economic gap of 58% between the genders. While across the world we have seen more women enter the workplace and wages rising, men continue to be paid significantly more than women and this trend is becoming more pronounced. The pay gap is widening, despite numerous initiatives to break glass ceilings and force salary disclosure. It is not as simple as saying that men and women who are doing the same job are paid differently (although that is part of the story too). It is also because women are more likely to work in industries with lower average pay, rather than high-income areas such as finance or technology which are traditionally dominated by men. They are more likely to undertake part-time work, due to commitments to care for either children, elderly parents, or both. They are also less likely to be in highly paid senior positions The Forum’s report calls for broad changes to the way in which we think about work and opportunity, in everything from education and parental rights to institutional and policy inertia.


"The pay gap is widening, despite numerous initiatives to break glass ceilings and force salary disclosure"

However, the solution may require more than simply changing perceptions, hiring more senior women and equalising pay. According to Francesca Gino, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, men and women may have different preferences when it comes to achieving high-level positions in the workplace. More specifically, the life goals and outcomes that men and women associate with professional advancement seem to be different. 500 adults in a wide variety of jobs were asked to imagine a promotion to a higher-level position in their current organisation that would substantially increase their level of power over others. Participants predicted the extent to which they would experience nine different outcomes if they decided to accept the promotion. Some outcomes were positive (such as job satisfaction, money, and status) while others were negative (stress, time constraints, and conflict with other life goals). Participants also indicated how desirable the promotion would be to them and their likelihood of pursuing the promotion. Both men and women expected the same level of positive outcomes from the promotion. However, the women expected the promotion to bring more negative outcomes than the men, which led them to view the potential promotion as less desirable than men did and to be less likely than men to pursue it.


In another study, 630 MBA graduates were asked about their potential and their career aspirations. The men and women rated their potential to advance on a similar basis, but there was a statistically significant difference between men and women with regard to the ideal position they wanted to attain. The women rated their interest in advancement lower than the men. A follow-up study of over 200 executives, suggested similar results and found women had stronger negative reactions than men to the hypothetical promotion but again the same amount of positive reactions. Female participants also reported viewing the potential promotion as less desirable and indicated that they would be less likely to accept the promotion as compared to male participants.


"The women expected the promotion to bring more negative outcomes than the men, which led them to view the potential promotion as less desirable than men did and to be less likely than men to pursue it"

Gina conducted nine studies in total, comprised of data from over 4,000 participants. These all suggested a profound and consistent gender gap in men and women’s core life goals. The conclusion seemed to be that men were more interested in advancement and power for its own sake, and women in achieving a balance across a range of competing goal. Gina notes that: “Based on this data, we cannot make value judgments about whether men and women’s differing views of professional advancement are good or bad, or rational or irrational for individuals, organizations, or society […] It is possible that men and women are correctly predicting the differential experiences that they would encounter with professional advancement and are making sound decisions. It is also possible that women are overestimating the negative consequences associated with power, or that men are underestimating them, or both”. The research does however indicate that one potential factor behind the gender gap could be that women are less ready than men, to compromise important life goals for the sacrifices (real or perceived) required by more senior leadership roles. Perhaps the answer to closing the gender gap lies in reflecting upon whether the demands we place upon senior leaders are worth it. Perhaps both men and women should in fact “lean out” a little more.

 

Are Values the Route to Gender Equality?

INSEAD Business School had an ongoing concern with its MBA programme. The grades of female students consistently lagged behind those of the men, and were inconsistent with GMAT predictions. Women should have been attaining similar grades. So Zoe Kinias , Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, conducted an experiment. She had all students, male and female, do a written exercise to affirm their core values and remind themselves of their motivations. The exercise is given at INSEAD’s orientation for new MBA students. They are simply asked to pick three values from a list of ten and then explain why and how the values are important and are being implemented in their day to day lives. There is no right answer. Kinias noticed that the exercise had no measurable effect on men’s grades, but women’s grades rose to men’s levels for campuses in both Singapore and in Fontainebleau, France, narrowing the grade gap by over 89%. There have been no significant cultural or geographical differences between France and Singapore in the five years since the experiment began.


Kinias suggests that the exercise may provide women with “an invisible shield” against feeling undervalued in environments where there are majority men. By reflecting on the ideas that define their identity, women were able to boost confidence and therefore performance. In an interview with Bloomburg, Timothy Van Zandt, INSEADs Dean of Faculty and research said the intervention served to “level the playing field in terms of assertiveness and confidence” and helped INSEAD promote an environment where women felt “equally respected and empowered” […] Sometimes people imagine looking in the mirror and saying, “You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and people like you”, which can have its benefits, but this is deeper than that” said Kinias. “It’s getting to “I am a person who does things that I think are valuable”. Thoughtful introduction of this type of intervention has potential to improve gender balance anywhere women are underrepresented and there are beliefs that men are more suited to the job, including leadership within competitive global business”. Now at least one large Singapore-based bank is adapting the exercise for employees, according to the Financial Women’s Association of Singapore.

 



 

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