The trend is real and it has profound social implications, but the reality on the ground, beyond the bare statistics, does not always match the upbeat tone of the story even if the magazine is careful to point to serious shortcomings in welfare facilities and wide discrepancies between nations. In Turkey, for instance, female workforce participation has been declining, rather than rising.Yes, a growing number of women are active in the labor force in the US and in Europe, but they do not always work out of choice or in favorable circumstances.
In the US, the ratio of female employment compared to men’s has been given a boost by the recession. Men are more numerous in industries such as manufacturing and construction, which have been affected by the downturn more than sectors like healthcare and education, traditionally wide open to women. Because women are also paid less, company managers, when given the choice, have sometimes opted to let go of their more expensive male, employees.
Equality in numbers, however, does not amount to power parity. The labor market is still designed according to male standards and the upper echelons are still largely dominated by men. Only 2 percent of Fortune 500 bosses are women, for instance.
The real challenge of the coming years, The Economist acknowledges, is to deal with the consequences of the momentous social change under way. Not surprisingly, given its business orientation, the magazine suggests market forces can do the job and only the lightest government intervention is needed.
Few women in Europe would be satisfied with the corporation-friendly US standards, which offer no statutory parental leave and only 12 weeks unpaid leave, while most Americans would be horrified by the welfare state model of Scandinavian countries. But when childcare is not subsidized by the state, families with low incomes often struggle to pay for adequate supervision and children end up paying the price.
What matters is not only to attract women, and the brain power they bring to an economy, into the labor force, but also to ensure that they can do their work without having to sacrifice their families’ and their own welfare in the bargain. In most countries, women are still responsible for the biggest share of household chores and childcare. Extending school hours and reducing summer holidays, as The Economist suggests, would undoubtedly help working mothers but the risk of putting excessive demands on children needs to be carefully taken into account.
The magazine dismisses the “new feminism” notion that women bring different skills and a different approach to work. “It would be a grave mistake to abandon old-fashioned meritocracy just at the time when it is turning to women’s advantage,” it argues in a column pointing to the fact that some of the most successful women are found in sectors not traditionally known to be female-friendly, such as banking and transport.
But advocates of gender equality are not arguing that women are better suited to “touchy feely” positions, as The Economist puts it, but rather that the overall corporate framework, with its high pressure and long working hours as pre-requisite for advancement, does not offer an environment particularly appealing for anyone, woman or man, who wants to achieve a reasonable work/life balance.
If so few mothers make it to the top of big corporations, it is partly because many are simply unwilling to display the single-mindedness that is currently required to rise through the ranks of most large companies. Unfortunately, the multitasking skills involved in successfully bringing up children are not considered assets to a career nor are they marketable in our money-minded world.
Will women be able to exploit their rising position in the work force to shape the business environment and impose the improved work/life balance that many employees, including a growing number of men, also crave? We will have the answer in a few years.
