Jobs Are Still For The Boys

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday May 22, 2002

Rebecca Scott

Gender rears its ugly head among top management. By Rebecca Scott

Women are enrolling increasingly in business and managerial studies, but when applying for upper middle- or senior-management jobs they may be at a gender disadvantage.

According to UK academic Marilyn Davidson, there's still a managerial-career logjam and it's based on gender.

Davidson, professor of managerial psychology from the Manchester School of Management at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, was in Australia this month for a visiting professorship at Griffith University's Graduate School of Management.

She says in the '70s,

10 to 12 per cent of Australia's business and management student population was made up of women. Now it is about 50 per cent.

In postgraduate enrolments, the overall gender breakdown this year at Macquarie Graduate School of Management is 40 per cent women and 60 per cent men. At the Australian Graduate School of Management, 25 per cent of enrolments in the full-time MBA program are women as are 34 per cent of the part-time executive MBA students. However, 62 per cent of enrolments in the graduate certificate in change management are women.

But, Davidson says, the number of women in senior management roles is not keeping pace with the gender catch-up at universities. "In Australia, the percentage of women in management positions is now about 24 per cent and, although that is an increase, it is still not keeping pace with the increased number of women in the full-time workforce, either. On top of that, the majority of the managerial positions held by women are in the public sector."

Women managers tend to be found in female-dominated managerial occupations such as personnel and marketing, she says. "There are very few in areas such as heavy manufacturing, construction or finance and business services - and that is something which hasn't changed much in the past 20 years."

In the boardroom, the gender discrepancy continues. Australia, she says, has about 10 per cent of its private-sector boardroom seats filled by women; for public-sector boardroom positions, the figure is about 32 per cent.

Her advice to managerial aspirants who happen to be female or to those women already in managerial positions but who are looking at a glass ceiling, is that the problem rests with the organisation, not with the women.

Davidson says research shows that to succeed women have to be better than their male counterparts. "When I follow through on graduates who have done business degrees I find that the women - often with better degrees - have no problem getting jobs. They climb from junior management into middle management. But when they try for upper middle- and senior-management roles they meet glass ceilings and walls. They also get paid less at every single managerial level, right up to board level."

Her advice to women who feel they may be battling any form of gender bias is to get out. "Don't stay there. Move to an organisation that values your talents."