Women still seriously under-represented in senior posts

In a survey published in January 2007, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) found that women are still not reaching the top of their professions in significant numbers across both the public and private sectors. The EOC also points out that, not only does the pace of change in senior positions remain slow in many areas, in some cases it has even reversed, despite the massive growth in women’s participation in work and public life.

On 5 January 2007, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) published a survey report entitled Sex and power: Who runs Britain? (880Kb PDF). The report, which examined the numbers of women holding senior positions across the public and private sectors, found that women are ‘woefully under-represented’ in a wide range of senior jobs. Moreover, it showed that, even after more than 30 years since the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 came into force in the UK, women are ‘still not reaching the top of their professions in significant numbers’.

Key findings

The EOC survey found that women hold just 10% of director positions in FTSE 100 companies (the Financial Times/London Stock Exchange index of the 100 most highly capitalised companies), and barely 20% of Members of Parliament (MP) positions. Elsewhere, women make up only 10% of senior judiciary positions, 12% of senior police officer posts, 14% of local authority council leader positions and 17% of editor posts in national newspapers. Nonetheless, women are reaching a ‘critical mass’ in some areas, including as heads of professional bodies and of national arts organisations (33% respectively).

Among those women who do reach top positions in their jobs, ethnic minority women make up just 0.3% of MPs and 0.4% of FTSE 100 directors, despite the fact that they represent 5.2% of the population and 3.9% of the labour market.

According to the EOC, at the current ‘painfully slow’ rate of progress, it will take another 20 years to achieve equality in civil service top management, 40 years to attain an equal number of senior women in the judiciary and 60 years to ensure an equal number of female directors in FTSE 100 companies (up from last year’s projection of 40 years due to this year’s decline in female directors).

The EOC also estimates that it will take up to 200 years and 40 elections to secure an equal number of women in parliament. Currently, the UK currently ranks 59th in terms of women’s representation in parliament, behind Rwanda, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Call for more flexibility

The EOC is calling for an extension of the statutory right to request flexible working arrangements for all employees, a provision which is currently confined to parents with young or disabled children (UK0304104F); it is also requesting the availability of more high-quality, well-paid flexible and part-time work at senior levels.

According to the EOC: ‘Asking for flexible working still spells career death for too many women in today’s workplace, and as a consequence women with caring responsibilities all too often have to “trade down” to keep working. Extending the right to ask for flexible working to everyone in the workplace would change that culture and enable more women to reach the top’.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has acknowledged that women are still underrepresented in senior business positions and that more progress needs to be made in creating more flexible senior roles. However, it considers the increasing number of younger female directors as a promising sign for the future.

Government action plan

While there has been no official government reaction to the EOC survey, on 11 September 2006, the government published an action plan entitled Implementing the Women and Work Commission recommendations (188Kb PDF), aimed at promoting gender equality at work in response to the February 2006 recommendations of the Women and Work Commission (UK0603019I). This included a GBP 0.5 million (around €0.75 million as at 31 January 2006) initiative to support projects designed to increase the numbers of part-time senior and quality jobs available, to be developed in consultation with the CBI and the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

The government is already committed to extending the right to request flexible working to employees who care for elderly or sick adult relatives from April 2007 (UK0609039I); moreover, according to the action plan, the government will ‘continue to examine the case for extending the right to parents of older children’.

Commentary

The number of women rising to senior executive positions below board level in large organisations is growing. However, many of these senior appointments are in disciplines such as human resources rather than in operational positions in charge of large divisions of a company. In light of the slow pace of change identified by the EOC report, it still remains to be seen whether or not the government’s non-legislative measures will have any effect on the number of women in senior positions.

Helen Newell, IRRU, University of Warwick