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It's even a signal nowadays. Companies with women in mid to upper management positions are signaling they're not corrupt, and they're all about efficiency and quality of work.
At least in the Gulf, if you want it done, put an Arab woman in charge.
So the conclusion would be that either 1) this isn't being tried, 2) it's still in the process of succeeding, such that discrimination hasn't been competed out of the market, or 3) there really is a gap in worker value, due to maternity or other gender-related issues, and the market recognizes it.
Rebuttals?
Free market forces can definitely spure society towards equality and human rights. Unfortunately, there is a clear point (i.e. China) where business interests take over. So while I'm certainly happy that business interests and are aligned in this case, it certainly isn't the norm. The only example I'm aware of where a business fell clearly on the side of equality and human rights at the cost of business was when Goog…
Business interest are violating rules of law by taking away people's homes and properties for the sake of commercial development. That is what happening in China. Or when companies keep polluting with no regard for people down the river and killing them with cancer. That is also another situation in China.
Now, I don't care about equality and stuff like that but I do care when people's lives are being run over. However, I do not care when people are taking dangerous job voluntary and improving their lives because of taking said job.
I don't even care about the whales unless people are starting to be affected by the damage of pollution and people are dying.
Now, there are tons of problems that people face everyday. There are not enough money to go around. People are not generous. But at least, we should get the problem right.
If I wanted to be sexist, I would say: that should work here. If there's a glass ceiling, then corporations that don't have it should out-compete those that do, because they'll be drawing from a bigger talent pool. So the conclusion would be that either 1) this isn't being tried, 2) it's still in the process of succeeding, such that discrimination hasn't been competed out of the market, or 3) there really is a gap in…
Great article. Actually, you can do the same right here at home by hiring minorities, disabled employees, and people who would otherwise not find work. Many of them will be more motivated than the average employee and you also do society a service by doing what most employers still don't.
That said, this article specifically mentions "a setting where it was clear that companies were not just hiring women for PR reasons" whereas I've been on hiring committees with specific instructions to favor non-white or non-male applicants here, so the arbitrage opportunity is likely less.
I'm sure they did.
The fact that it was multi-nationals doing the hiring is I think an important factor. "Foreigners" are often expected to behave eccentrically, and if they are hiring women managers, oh well. I think a native company doing the same thing would face a more uphill battle.
Still, very heartening, and perhaps enough to start a snowball effect in some countries.
If I wanted to be sexist, I would say: that should work here. If there's a glass ceiling, then corporations that don't have it should out-compete those that do, because they'll be drawing from a bigger talent pool. So the conclusion would be that either 1) this isn't being tried, 2) it's still in the process of succeeding, such that discrimination hasn't been competed out of the market, or 3) there really is a gap in…
If I wanted to be sexist, I would say: that should work here. If there's a glass ceiling, then corporations that don't have it should out-compete those that do, because they'll be drawing from a bigger talent pool. So the conclusion would be that either 1) this isn't being tried, 2) it's still in the process of succeeding, such that discrimination hasn't been competed out of the market, or 3) there really is a gap in…
... you'll come away with your head spinning because there's just too damned many factors.
Consider the factor of giving generous paid maternity leave. Obviously a benefit. Except that a company won't want to hire or pay someone that may disappear like that. Except they are legally obligated to. Except these things can't really be legally obligated because there's always a way around it. And of course a certain percentage of women really do of their own free will choose not to come back, which is hard to put an economic value on for any interested party, but if you can't put a reasonably concrete objective value on both the value of having that choice, and the values of exercising that choice, how can you tell whether women are being shortchanged? Being guaranteed that you can return to your job after X months is still some sort of economic value, even if most of the X months is itself unpaid.
It isn't even necessarily that hard to find women getting paid more than men by some metrics now: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.... Note, I'm explicitly calling your attention to the various caveats and logic in the article, because this is an example of my real point about the complexity of the topic, not that one article proves anything about the "real question"; my point is exactly that nailing down the "real question" is very, very complicated, well beyond simply totalling up who makes what and looking at which number is larger.
At this point, given the very market forces that this article talks about, I am unconvinced there is a major systematic problem that comes from human bias; I think the variance caused by the non-zero-but-small-in-practice effect is dominated by the other various concerns that cause disparities. I'm sure there's sexism afoot but I suspect it's been pushed below the noise threshold. But I can't prove it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That makes sense. But, based on the article, why couldn't you also conclude that women are better managers than men, in general, and not just because they are a better value due to cultural externalities?
Actually I would probably conclude that having a diverse culture makes better decisions than a monoculture. Wouldn't a monoculture of yes-men, for example, be less likely to kill a failing project early on, and save money that would otherwise be wasted? Having a diverse team will provide better input on business practices, processes and work ethics, which all impact the product a business produces, and ultimately the…
I am not sure culture counts matter as long as it is a good culture. Sure a mediocre multiculture is better than a bad monoculture but that just means mediocre is better than bad not multi better than mono.
It may be OT, but it made me think of something: Inequality of opportunity is part of what made the U.S. a 20th century powerhouse. Bright, educated women had two career choices pre-1965: nursing or teaching. (Even in 1960, the state school my mom went to did not accept women into engineering or architecture and she could only take higher science classes if she planned to teach.) All those bright women with no option…
Why do you feel that our educational system achieved "great heights", and why do you believe these heights made the US a "20th century powerhouse"?