All about Quota on Women in Top Management

Following a discussion on the introduction of laws regarding
setting of quota on women in top management in Germany, I found
this article "In the Philippines, women bosses rule," and would
like to give my readers a brief report on the situation of Pinays
in the big business world back home. Very surprising to see the
rank of Germany when it comes to women in top management.
Here's the article.

In the Philippines, women bosses rule

MANILA - NINE out of 10 supervisors at Anxa, a French-owned software development
company in Manila, are women. And it is no coincidence.

For Mr Fabrice Boutain, the company's general manager, Filipino women are more motivated, handle responsibility better and are much cooler under pressure than men.

'We have been in the Philippines for five years, and practically all our managers are women,' he said.

Proportion of women in top management

* Philippines: 50%
* Brazil: 42%
* Thailand: 39%
* Hong Kong: 35%
* Russia: 34%
* China: 32%
* Botswana: 31%
* South Africa: 29%
* Taiwan: 29%
* New Zealand: 24%
* Malaysia: 23%
* Poland: 23%
* United States: 23%
* Armenia: 22%
* Australia: 22%
* Sweden: 22%
* France: 21%
* Greece: 21%
* Ireland: 21%
* Singapore: 21%
* Mexico: 20%
* Canada: 19%
* United Kingdom: 19%
* Spain: 17%
* Turkey: 17%
* Argentina: 16%
* India: 14%
* Italy: 14%
* Netherlands: 13%
* Germany: 12%
* Luxembourg: 10%
* Japan: 7%

SOURCE: GRANT THORNTON

Anxa may be an extreme example, but nowhere else in the world do women occupy as many supervisory and management positions than in this country.

A recent survey by business consultants Grant Thornton International revealed that half the senior management positions in the Philippines were held by women.

This compared with a global average of just under a quarter, including in Singapore.

Philippine government figures give an even stronger indication of the trend. The latest Labour Department data showed that women in executive and supervisory roles not only outnumbered men, but also indicated that the gender gap had been widening steadily over the past five years.

So, why are Filipinas making such big strides in the workplace?

One reason, managers and business organisations said, is that Filipino men mostly do not mind having women bosses.

'Mothers are very dominant figures in Filipino society,' said Ms Dina Salonga, managing director of SQL Wizard, a software company she set up just over a decade ago with four male partners.

'Historically, we have always had strong women in the Philippines. Women are certainly not in the background here, either in the home or in society.'

Mr Dan Roces, chief researcher at the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP), agreed.

'Filipino men tend to be closest to their mothers and do not generally have a problem taking orders from women,' he said.

In a recent study for the Philippine Centre of Investigative Journalism, writer Jaileen Jimeno said boys were more pampered at home and did fewer chores than girls. As a result, women were simply better prepared for multi-tasking and other rigours of the workplace.

Labour and Employment Secretary Arturo Brion attributed the rise in the number of women managers largely to education. One in five employed Filipinas had completed college or higher education, compared with only one in 10 employed men, he noted.

It is not only in the workplace that women are making their mark in the Philippines.

Running the country, of course, is President Gloria Arroyo, the second woman president since democracy icon Corazon Aquino replaced Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

However, the country's legislature is still predominantly male, with women making up only 20 per cent of the House of Representatives.

It was during the 1980s that women started making their presence felt in senior management. And government data showed that between 2004 and last year, the number of women executives and supervisors rose by 97,000 - six times more than for men.

At the end of last year, there were 2.26 million women in these jobs, compared with 1.63 million men.

Not surprisingly, 97 per cent of Filipino respondents to the Grant Thornton survey, which polled 7,200 companies in 32 countries, said women occupied senior positions in their companies.

In East Asia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand came in at more than 80 per cent. Singapore scored 69 per cent, and Japan, which pulled down the regional showing, was last with only 25 per cent.

'It is encouraging to see some of the Asian economies leading the way. North American and European businesses, in particular, continue to disappoint,' said Ms April Mackenzie, Grant Thornton's executive director for public policy.

One factor enabling working mothers in the Philippines to pull long hours in the office is the abundant supply of cheap domestic help to look after the children.

But while women are landing senior jobs, men still get paid more. PMAP's Mr Roces said the median management salary is 100,000 pesos (S$3,351) for men and 75,700 pesos for women, although the gap narrows considerably at higher levels.

In larger companies, he said, career ladders for women aiming for senior management positions tended to be in the human resources and finance departments.

Mrs Nina Lim worked in the finance departments of two foreign airlines before joining the Manila office of American software vendor Oracle, where she has been finance director since 2000.

Now in her late 40s, she said: 'Equal opportunities in the workplace need to be backed by corporate policies, and I have been lucky in that respect.

'But as a woman, you still have to come across as a figure of authority and establish the respect of your male colleagues.'

And women should keep on doing that, observed congressman Lisa Maza of the Gabriela Women's Party, which advocates women's issues.

'There have been considerable gains in equal opportunities over the past 20 years, but women still have to keep on asserting themselves in the workplace,' she said.

'And then there is the enduring attitude that those who got to the top did so by either being rich or being a bitch, or they slept their way there.'

Article taken from Asiaone