What is global change?

Earlier this year, the ILO Bureau for Employers’ Activities launched its report on Women in Business and Management: Gaining Momentum.

Its main messages are perhaps well known and hopefully accepted: women’s presence in the labour market is increasingly significant for economic growth and development and women represent an incredible talent pool which should not be ignored.

The good news is that a greater percentage of women earn their own income than in the past and work in a broader range of occupations.

Women are swelling the ranks of lower and middle managers in many regions, in some cases occupying more than 50% of all jobs. More and more, they’re also joining the ranks of entrepreneurs and are running their own businesses. Around 30% of businesses are now run by women.

However, even though there are more women leaders in business, statistically speaking the proportion of women CEOs and board members is still much lower than their participation in the labour market overall and in management generally. It’s especially low at big companies. Just 5 per cent of publicly traded firms have a woman at the helm.

Our report showed that while the glass ceiling may be cracked, it’s still far from broken.

Key takeaways

One of the tangible objectives of the report is to provide a solid research background to help deepen our knowledge about the good practices, resources, organisational structures and networks already in place in the business community.

A recent example is a conference held last month entitled

Held in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation and the Confederation of British Industry at its headquarters in London, the meeting was a milestone. For the first time, it brought constituents from businesses and their representative organisations together with experts and practitioners from around the world to discuss the challenges and critical steps to advancing women in leadership positions and levelling the playing field for women and men.

It’s generally recognised that some of the main obstacles holding women back are gender stereotypes, corporate cultures, difficulties in reconciling work and family responsibilities as well as more subtle forms of gender biases which sometimes exist in educational systems and the workplace.

At the London conference many of these issues were discussed in a dynamic and open way. We tackled questions like: why after so many decades have women not broken through the glass ceiling in significant numbers? Do employers tend to hire people that are similar to themselves?

• Causes of global change
• Global changes
• What is global climate?