Last night in class we were discussing the role of women in the workplace. We talked about how many women are highly educated but still don’t retain equal positions of that of men. There was an article in the November 22nd issue of Time magazine that discussed women’s current position in the workplace. It says, “In October 2009, the U.S. workforce became nearly half female: women held 49.9% of all nonfarm labor jobs and 51.5% of high-paying management and professional positions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics…For every two guys that get a higher degree, three women do. This is almost the exact opposite of the graduation ratio that existed when the baby boomers entered college. And as the U.S. continues its migration from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge-based one, women are posed to snag more jobs… While it’s true that most women still earn less than men, are far less likely to be in the highest-salaried executive positions and suffer a prohibitive motherhood penalty, about a third of women outearn their husbands. Women are at 117% of men’s pay in New York City”
Bolman and Deal discuss some of the reasons why it has been harder for women to gain higher-level positions. However they state, “Attitudes are changing, support mechanisms have increased, and cultural views have shifted.” As we can see from these statistics women holding higher positions and earning larger salaries are on the rise, and New York City seems to be very open to this.
Farah
Farah
ReplyDeleteThanks. I have never heard the expression Sheconomy before. A huge issue! What perpetuates the "glass ceiling" See this article from the Financial Times:
A final push can break the glass ceiling
By Sylvia Hewlett
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/186d2054-f1ba-11df-bb5a-00144feab49a.html#axzz168fMkO4A (links usually don't work from comment, so cut and past or search for author/title).
It says, "Now new research provides a more convincing answer: women who are qualified to lead stall not for lack of drive, but for lack of a push. Unlike men, senior women often lack the backing needed to propel them into upper management – a powerful executive sponsor in their line of command prepared to go out on a limb for a chosen protégé and push for their next promotion."
John
Hi Farah,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your posting. It’s good to know that women in New York City are so successful. It’s disheartening though to think that some of the most successful women have never gotten married nor had children, such as Condalezza Rice and Oprah. The last three women nominated to the Supreme Court –Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Harriet Miers (who withdrew) – have all been single and without children. They haven’t suffered from the prohibitive motherhood penalty, as you wrote about. Only 15 Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO. It makes women feel that we can’t have it all.
I think that women won’t be on equal footing with men in the workplace until we stop punishing mothers, and fathers too, for taking time off from work to spend with their families.
Catherine Crawford