Women’s economic participation – Enablers, barriers and responses

There are no surprises in terms of enablers and barriers that impact women’s economic participation.
The enablers discussed by the interviewees are: government legislation, access to education, availability of child care, good business practices, and positive societal perceptions. Child care and societal perceptions are also considered barriers, so too are career and family planning and self-imposed barriers.

The report shows that businesses are making real efforts to introduce policies for addressing some
of the gender issues that limit women’s participation. Organisations are making efforts to eliminate bias by instituting policies that either educate those with biases and/or ensure that such biases do not limit the recruitment, retention, and progression of female employees. Positive discrimination is also seen as a response to a perceived tendency by women to promote themselves less forcefully than their male counterparts do. Consequently, some organisations have concluded that having a greater number of women in decision-making roles can be a mechanism to ensure that qualified women generally do not get left behind in the advancement process. Businesses are also showing support for working families via maternity, paternity and parental leave; lactation rooms, parenting Web sites and classes; flexible work mechanisms; and emergency child care support. Some companies have developed networks – both external and internal – for women.

“Many businesses can point to good progress made in terms of supporting diversity in the workplace and advancing women to middle-management ranks,” said Mr. DiPiazza. “However, it is far from clear if such programmes are actually changing underlying corporate cultures. Increasing women’s economic participation is very much dependent upon changing this mindset. Closing the gender gap in a way that is both supportive of families and economically advantageous to business could be seen as the holy grail of gender diversity interventions.”

Download the abstract of this research here