Why women don't rule: men still far outnumber women in corporate management and executive positions. New research proposes why

T+D, April, 2003 by Eva Kaplan-Leiserson

The good news: Women are making definite strides in the world of business. The bad news: Women still number far fewer than men in the high-powered positions. In the United States, the number of women holding corporate officer positions at large public companies has almost doubled since 1995--up to 15.7 percent from 8.7 percent. But women make up only 5 percent of all top-earning U.S. executives.

Internationally, the story is much the same. A recent Fortune article cites a study of British managers: Twenty-five percent are now women, up from 9 percent a decade ago. That rise, like the one in the United States, is a good start. But when will the figures reflect population ratios, and what's stopping that from happening? New research proposes some answers.

Making a difference. A recent study examined work attitudes of boys and girls in middle and high schools in the United States. Ninety seven percent of girls surveyed expect to work to help support their families, but only 10 percent plan a business career. What's at issue? Work values, it seems. Two-thirds of the girls ranked helping others in their career as "extremely or very important," and only half ranked making money as a top priority. Among the boys, the numbers were almost exactly reversed.

Researchers believe that the girls in the study--and their peers in general--have a perception that they can't help others in a business career. What's needed is more women as role models to show girls that business and service to others can mix, says an associate dean of the all female Simmons School of Management.

Competitive spirit. Two economists at U.S. universities have determined that men are more competitive than women--if you agree with their interpretation of the data, that is.

One study at the University of Chicago had boys and girls run races alone and together. When the children ran alone, they had similar speeds. But when a boy was paired together with a girl, he ran significantly faster than when he ran alone. However, the girl showed no increase in speed.

The second study, by an economist at the University of Minnesota, paid Israeli students money for completing mazes. When the students were all paid per maze, men and women did equally well. But when only the top performer was paid, male performance increased by 50 percent, while female performance remained the same.

The studies' authors conclude that women are much less responsive to competition than men, which may hurt them in competitive job markets and hinder promotions.

Training obstacles. In the United Kingdom, a survey conducted by training supplier Cambridge Online Learning found that twice as many women as men are missing out on training because of domestic responsibilities or because they work part-time. Lack of child care and needing to care for a relative interfered with the training of working mothers

"Generation Sandwich." (Intelligence, February T D) and women working part-time felt less entitled to training than fill-time staff.

What can the training function do to help women achieve top positions? Write to me ekaplan@astd.org and tell me what these studies mean-or don't mean-to you. I'll run a selection of comments in an upcoming column.

Sources/the Washington Post, Business Week, personnel. today.com

RELATED ARTICLE: Battle of the Sexes

This year's versions of CBS's Survivor and MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge change formats to pit men against women. As of this writing, the women on MTV have won four of six mental and physical competitions. Survivor launched a week before press, but it will be interesting to see whether the results mirror the studies cited here.