"There is nothing to celebrate": the low figure of women's participation in positions of responsibility in companies

Whenever figures are published on the gap between men and women in the labor market, the figures are the excuse to directly contact the harsh reality. However, the phenomenon is worsening as regards the participation of women in positions of responsibility.

On Thursday, the badociation Mujeres Empresarias, in conjunction with the Department of Social Studies of the U. Católica (Desuc), revealed the new report entitled Women in Senior Business Management 2018, document revealing another violent conflict with inequalities.

The study, which examines the presence of women in management positions in 111 large companies in Chile, showed that of management positions. , female representation is extremely rare. Without going any further, IMAD 2018 found that in this exclusive group of high corporate decisions, only 17% were women. This, according to the survey of publicly traded companies, banks, public entities and multinationals.

The figure, which is clearly critical, is further aggravated if it is discriminated against in positions that are more in charge of the decisions of a Yearbook: out of the total number of CFOs, only 12% are women, while Directors General do not exceed 4%. And when we talk about the business summit, only 4% of women hold the Presidency of the Presidency.

The grossest data, however, is that 28% of firms have no high-level women and 49% have the same thing in their repertoires.

"Radical Measures"

By dividing the problem by sector, one of the elements that punishes inequality the most is the industrial sector, with representation. 9% of women in their repertoires, and something similar occurs in the financial field, with a representation of 10%. Cristián Ayala, director of Desuc, points out that one of the needs to establish this index provides good "public information", this encourages companies to publish and maintain their information on plants and gender .

In this context, Catalina Maluk is precisely one of the cases that escapes the norm.The Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Management of the Central University, comparing the four percentage increase points this year (13% of participation in 2017), indicates that while any increase is positive, "these figures do not provide anything celebrate. "

Since, he says, the increase in participation is often only explained by the increased effort of women and not precisely by a change in the company. "Expecting a change by inertia can take a lot more than 20 years, women have progressed in administrative positions, but in the highest positions, there is still a significant cultural barrier," says the l & # 39; economist

"It is incredible that in general terms Women's participation in the labor market is more similar to Islamic countries than to OECD countries, which is why we need concrete regulatory measures: replace section 203 of the Labor Code, so that the place of birth is the place of all companies. and, on the other hand, that the post-natal is divided equally between men and women, it is only so that the companies will not be able to establish accounting to choose a bad and to badume a cost shared, "he concludes.