Gender equality in the workplace is not a priority for business today. In the workplace context the term gender equality refers to equality between men and women with respect to opportunities, treatment, and outcomes including both economic and social achievements. It encompasses a range of considerations including equality of representation in the workforce, types of work performed, access to equal pay, representation at management and board level, childcare, workplace flexibility, equal opportunity and anti-discrimination policies.
The economic participation of women is increasingly seen as vital to long term prosperity with women making up most of the talent pool and having unprecedented economic influence (Wittenberg-Cox & Maitland, 2009, p1).
Despite significant gender related imbalances in the workplace, businesses have failed to make gender equality a priority.
This essay focusses on the Australian context and outlines three arguments supporting the assertion that gender equality is not a priority for business, namely that companies have been slow to appoint females to board positions, have failed to be proactive in implement adequate equal opportunity policies and have not eliminated income disparities between the sexes. Firstly, the low proportion of women in board positions in Australia demonstrates that gender equality is not a priority for business.
The percentage of women on boards is a benchmark of progress towards gender equality because it measures the influence women have in the key decision making processes of companies. Furthermore, the scarcity of women directors is illustrative of the broader economic disadvantage experienced by women. For example, Braund notes that in 2011, fewer than five percent of board positions in the largest three hundred Australian companies were occupied by women (2012, para. 11).
The Term Paper on Women on Corporate Board of Director
... the countries support the gender equality in every aspect including in corporate board of directors. The increased amount of women participation and contribution ... For the example in the UK, attitudes in the workplace and work environment are the top causes it is ... participation of both genders in the boards is the priority. This is because the consolidation between men and women in decision-making ...
Key figures from the Reibey Institute indicate that half of the largest five hundred Australian companies have no women on their board (2011, p3).
These statistics demonstrate that many publicly listed companies have either been ineffective in addressing the boardroom gender imbalance or have made little effort to do so. Some may argue that whilst the number of women in board positions is small, the overall trend is positive and indicates that companies are addressing the imbalance. However the rate of change is in Australia is extremely slow, falling far behind that of countries such as Norway, where legislated quotas have been responsible for increasing female board membership to over forty percent
(Sweigart, 2012, p83).
This comparison clearly shows that companies in Australia are lagging behind their proactive counterparts in promoting gender equality. Thus the low representation of women on Australian company boards substantiates the claim that gender equality is not a priority for business; moreover it supports the need for legislation to encourage more effective company initiatives. Secondly, Australian companies have not implemented robust equal opportunity policies to ensure that adequate numbers of female employees are promoted to senior management positions.
The lack of successful initiatives and the consequent need for legislation reflects an absence of commitment to treat gender equality as a priority. In November 2012, the Australian federal parliament passed the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Schwartz, 2012, para. 2).
The need for government involvement underscores the argument that Australian companies are not independently treating gender equality as a priority. Furthermore, a report issued by Ernst & Young states that whilst “many gender equity programs are in place, tangible change is yet to materialize for the majority of organisations” (2011, p3).
The Term Paper on Federation Australian Women
How and why did Federation occur? The movement to Federation At the end of the 1800 s, Australia was divided into six separate colonies instead of being one nation. But people had been talking for years about whether Australia should be one nation, and in the 1890 s a series of meetings (called conventions or conferences) was held to discuss federation of the colonies. The Premier of New South ...
This evidence suggests that Australian companies are yet to seriously tackle the impediments preventing full gender equality. Some may assert that Australian companies are genuinely attempting to redress gender equality issues and may cite the Commonwealth Bank as an example. In 2011 the bank announced targets to increase the number of women in executive management roles to thirty-five percent by 2014 (Equal Opportunity For Women In The Workplace Agency (EOWA), 2012, p5).
However, very few companies are outpacing legislation by voluntarily adopting such measures.
This suggests that the majority of companies are merely reacting to legislative changes and do not appear to be embracing gender equality wholeheartedly. Hence the current ineffectiveness of gender equality policies and the lack of proactive measures demonstrate that gender equality in the workplace remains a low priority, an assertion which is further supported by gender based income disparities. Finally, the historic disparity of income between males and females continues to exist both within Australia and throughout the world.
This enduring inequity remains prevalent throughout all levels of organisations, indicating that modern businesses are failing to treat gender equality as a matter of priority. For example, a study of the largest two hundred Australian companies found that females in senior managerial positions including chief financial officers earn half that of their male counterparts (Maiden, 2008, p27).
In addition, a report by the International Labour Organization finds that pay gaps exist across entry level positions for skilled trades, professional and executive level jobs throughout the globe (2008, p31).
Thus it is clear that businesses have not been effective in ensuring equal pay for men and women at all organisational levels, both within Australia and across the world. Some would argue that businesses are treating gender equality as a priority because pay equity changes are taking effect, albeit slowly. This statement is misleading because many countries such as Australia have experienced increasing gender pay gaps in recent times. Statistics illustrate that the average weekly income of women working full time in Australia is currently 17.
The Term Paper on Women and Pay
“A Women’s Right to Equal Pay – Does the Equal Pay Act Work in a Women’s Favor? ” The issue of women and pay has stroke many controversies since time immemorial. Between the years 1950 and 1960, statistics show that men were getting between a percentage on 50 and 60 dollars more than the women were. It is also evident that most employers would prefer men than women. This is because of the fact ...
5 percent below that of males, representing a deterioration of 1. 5 percent over the last eighteen years (EOWA, 2012, p1), whilst an Australian study in 2010 attributed sixty percent of the gender pay gap to simply “being a woman” (National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, 2010, p1).
This discrepancy shows that the pay gap cannot be attributed to mitigating factors such as industrial segregation. Hence this sustained gender income disparity supports the argument that companies are not making gender equity a priority.
In conclusion, the argument that gender equality in the workplace is not a priority for business is supported by convincing evidence. Board positions in Australian companies are currently dominated by males, with fewer than five percent of positions in the largest three hundred companies occupied by women. Furthermore, few businesses are proactively instigating measures to combat gender inequality but rather have been compelled by legislation. Disparities of income exist at all levels of organisations with females in senior management positions sometimes earning half that of their male counterparts.
Therefore it is clearly evident that gender equality in the workplace is not a priority for business today. In the future the Australian government is likely to introduce mandatory quotas for the representation of women on boards and in senior management, similar to those in Norway. With some companies struggling to comply with even basic reporting the pace of change will otherwise be unacceptably slow and legislative means may be the only way to bring about change in a timely fashion.
