Inspiring Change; Reflecting Reality – A look at gender quotas By Ambassador Paola Amadei, Head of Delegation for the European Union in Jamaica Across the world women continue to be underrepresented in top positions of government and corporate boards, the EU being no exception in this respect. Research shows that more women attain tertiary education than men in many developed and developing countries. In the EU Member States, 60 percent of University graduates are women. Women account for 60 percent of the EU workforce at all levels, however gender balance in positions of leadership in the workforce remain disappointing, despite having improved in the last few years and despite gender equality having been enshrined in the EU Treaty and in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Women occupy on average 13 percent of board seats of the largest publicly listed companies in EU Member States but only 3 percent chair boards. Women parliamentarians across EU Member states average 24.7 percent; and of the major political parties, only 10 percent of the leaders are female. Even in the European Parliament only 35 percent of members are women. Even if it may be argued that the low numbers are the result of women not leaning forward, this is in itself an indication that not enough is being done in the family, in school, in the work place, in the media, not only to encourage women to apply for those top positions but also to provide women and men with structures that would allow them to better balance work and family commitments, which have more often than not pushed women to give up higher career goals in order to continue to shoulder most of the burden of family care. More worryingly, the gender balance in the power rooms might actually be a reflection of selection processes which favour men over women. The imbalance is not only an individual rights issue, not allowing women to reach positions they deserve and to deploy their full potential, but it is also inefficient for society at large, as bias in selection processes based on gender or other form of discrimination might deprive us of seeing the best candidate in the job. If societies want to reach their full potential, they need to make full use of all their human resources. In order to counter what appears to be the result of an uneven playing field, several countries in the EU have introduced quotas to promote increased representation of women in political bodies and businesses; in the same way as quotas have been introduced to promote the insertion in society of people with disabilities or persons belonging to other minority groups.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:08:38 +0000
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