Today, March 8, is the 100th International Women's Day. Throughout the month, various organizations are hosting events and projects to celebrate the progress of women around the world, and bring attention to what needs to be done to further improve women's opportunities.
Today, everyone here at MCE would like to congratulate women on their continuous progress in management:
· Improved access to Education: Women make up more than half of all university graduates in many countries, and this is improving quickly in all emerging and fast-growth economies. Compare this to the fact that Cambridge University finally admitted women in 1947.
· Improved access to Jobs: Women make up more than half of the workforce in most Western countries. In the European Union, the percentage of all women employed moved from 60 to 65% from 1992 to 2009. Women lost fewer jobs in the recession and are expected to benefit most by the recovery. Women are increasingly starting their own businesses and creating income for others.
· Making inroads into Management: Women are nearly equal with men in junior management roles in some countries. In Western countries, nearly a third of the middle managers are women. There are few women at senior levels, but this is improving.
· Improved wages: In most countries, the gap between men’s and women’s pay is narrowing. In the EU, it is about 17.5% today. In some cities and amongst younger employees, women even earn more than men. Women in the West are expected be out-earning men overall by 2024.
· Government policy-making: Women in high government roles is less than 20% in most countries, but this is improving. Women have recently won seats in governments in Gulf countries. In contrast, it was as late as 1994 that women in the Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden won the right to vote on local issues.
· Improved access to management development. In our own experience, we saw very few female participants at MCE up through the 1980s. Over last 10 years our workshops have averaged between 30-35% women, and this is growing.
But perhaps one of the most interesting and helpful recent developments is that for many organizations, promoting women in management has moved from an issue of fairness to an issue of necessity. Organizations need women to stay in business for these reasons:
· Diversity for improved decision-making. Recent studies show a correlation between having more women at the top, and better decisions and performance. Some say that the recession could have been avoided if more women had been involved in economic decision-making.
· Fulfilling talent needs. There are not enough men with the right skills to fill all the roles needed for companies to remain competitive. Educated women are a source of talent that companies would like to tap more of.
· Regulatory pressure. Norway and France have imposed gender quotas for boards. Other countries are looking to do the same. Many companies are moving to improve their gender balance before it is imposed on them.
· Understanding and dealing with customers. 80% of household purchase decisions are made by women. Women are customers in B2B environments as well. Much of the market growth we saw 1980 - 2008 was due to women's improved purchasing power. On a global level, women are the biggest emerging market in the history of the planet—more than twice the size of India and China combined. Many companies believe it takes women to know how to sell to women.
We think there is a lot of promise for women's continued progress and success in management. There is still a long way to go, but it is an exciting road.
May I invite those of you who haven't done so, to join MCE's community for women by clicking on either of the links below. If you've already joined, why not invite your friends and colleagues who could benefit? Just forward this email.
If you are a senior manager, director, vice president, general manager, senior functional manager, if you have 15 or more years of professional experience, this community is for you.
If you are a manager, supervisor, individual contributor in an expert function role, or if you are in the early to middle stages of your career, this community is for you.
In case of any questions, you can reach me at Karen@mce-ama.com
Happy International Women's Day, everyone!
WIE (engl. Women in Engineering) predstavlja skupinu IEEE članica i članova koji su prepoznali i pridružili se nastojanju IEEE-a da inspirira, uključi, ohrabri i ojača stručni i društveni angažman žena - inženjerki i znanstvenica - širom svijeta. Ova interesna skupina raznovrsnim aktivnostima promovira žene u struci i podržava ih u razvoju stručne karijere.To je najveća međunarodna stručna udruga s takvim ciljevima. WIE sada ima više od 250 interesnih skupina širom svijeta s preko 11.000 članica i članova. 
