The potential of women in emerging markets
As Western markets grapple with the lingering ripples of recession,
companies are turning to emerging markets for respite.
Many, however, may not be considering how women can help their
business—and how their business can help women.
New
research from Sylvia Ann Hewlett, a professor at Columbia University and
founding President of the Center for Work-Life Policy, sheds some light
on this issue.
The lead author, with Ripa Rashid, of a new study called ‘In plain
sight: female talent in emerging markets’, Hewlett used surveys, focus
groups and comparative data to assess the state of female talent in the
BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as the United
Arab Emirates.
The full report will be available June 22, but Hewlett penned a
forthcoming article for the May issue of the Harvard Business Review.
A think tank in Manhattan, the Center for Work-Life Policy also
spearheads “the hidden brain drain,” a task force made up of 56
companies committed to applying its research on women to their corporate
practices.
Hewlett spoke with Hong Kong reporter Hana R. Alberts about the
surprising conclusions of her yearlong study, which was supported by
Bloomberg, Booz and Company, Intel (INTC - news - people), Pfizer (PFE -
news - people) and Siemens (SI - news - people). Below are excerpts from
the conversation:
Forbes: Why are multinational
companies pinning their hope on emerging markets, and why is doing so
proving such a challenge?
Sylvia Ann Hewlett: I think that the emerging markets are seen as the
kind of growth engine of the world going forward. China is growing at 11
percent a year right this second, for instance. This is a very dynamic
part of the world. Some of the problems really revolve around the supply
of talent. Although there are huge populations involved and large pools
of educated people, only 10 percent to 15 percent of the
college-graduate population of China and India are well-prepared enough
to be part of a management track at a local corporation. So the
effective highly qualified pool of people is quite limited.
We are essentially saying in this study that over half of college
graduates in these markets are now female, and they’ve been somewhat
neglected in terms of the war for talent.
It would make a lot of sense, given the backdrop I just described, to
be much more proactive with the recruiting and training of females in
these markets.
In what way is harnessing the talents
of women a solution to this problem?
The problem obviously is there is a very heated and fiercely
competitive labour market in these emerging economies. Women comprise
half of their labour pool.
They are a big part of the answer to this question: how are we going
to find enough people to actually start up expansion and manage
enterprises in these very fast-growing economies? It’s not something
that global managers easily think of as the solution because of our
conception of women in developing economies as a victim of culture and a
victim of patriarchy.
It takes a real kind of adjustment of our perspective that they are
now out competing with men in the tertiary education system.
We don’t just look at the numerical talent in the study. It is pretty
amazing that in Brazil women are now 60 percent of college graduates, in
the UAE, 65 percent. We also measured aspiration and ambition.
They really are going for high-powered careers and they are very
committed to the companies that they work for. We measured, for
instance, the proportion of women who love their work, are willing to go
the extra mile for their companies and the figures are deeply impressive
in a country like India.
What are the common characteristics
that you found in your survey of women in emerging markets with respect
to education and qualifications? How does that differ to women in
developed markets? Women in emerging markets are not at all
backward or behind. Fifty-five percent of college degrees are now going
to women in emerging markets. In the U.S., I believe, it is 58 percent -
very similar. And the way in which emerging market women are even ahead
of the curve is that they tend to be even more ambitious in careers than
American women. We find that over 80 percent of women in India, for
instance, want to hold a top job. The U.S. figure is more like 40
percent.
Explain the goal of your study and
the research methods.
The goal of the study was to examine the female talent pipeline, the
reservoir, if you like, of highly qualified women in the emerging
markets. We focused on BRIC (countries) and the UAE. We looked at the
UAE because we wanted to have something of a toehold in the Arab Muslin
world, and we thought that would give us a window into the reality
there.
The methodology was very rigorous. We (surveyed) representative
samples (of women) who had college degrees and who were at work in
either the private or a public sector.
The sample size was 5,000 women and men in 2009. We were trying to
get the contrast between male and female experiences.
We had two kinds of qualitative research. We did traditional
in-person focus groups in those geographies with women in managerial
jobs, and some men, but we also did something called virtual strategy
sessions.
This is a new research tool that we’ve developed which creates the
possibility of focus groups across the world online and via conference
call. This enables us to get all kinds of conversation, debate and
insight that is cumulative.
We have them answer open-ended questions about various opportunities
they are discovering, or of their wish lists concerning company
policies.
How do both the opportunities and the
barriers or obstacles to access for women compare between the developed
and the emerging markets?
We find that one reason why well-qualified women in China or Brazil,
or any of these emerging markets, might be more ambitious than their
counterparts is that they don’t see themselves being sideswiped by
childcare issues. They have very few children; think of China and the
One Child policy. They also have lots of hands-on extended family,
particularly grandparents, very much on the case.
There is a combination of grandparents, inexpensive domestic help and
also in some countries newly created daycare options. So there are many
shoulders to lean on. Where in the U.S. it is often a juggling act, and
it is often very expensive thing to get decent help. We know it can be a
nightmare in terms of impeding a woman’s progress in the workplace.
Looking at some of the other differences, we find that the
commitments at work tend to be very heavy in terms of hours. We find in
Russia the average workweek for a managerial employee is 73 hours a
week; in China it is 72 hours. The challenge of conjuring up that kind
of work commitment can be problematic for women who still continue to
have family obligations as daughters and daughters-in law.
We looked at was bias, stereotypes, discrimination. We found that
over 30 percent of these managerial women, particularly in India, China
and the UAE did feel they were treated unfairly because of their gender,
or not seen as having leadership potential because they were women.
Interestingly enough their male colleagues agreed that discrimination
did happen in the workplace. To rise up the ranks these days, and to get
the top jobs, you increasingly need a global experience.
Eighty percent of these ambitious women in emerging markets thought
they needed this. But it was hard to get this type of experience because
there were a lot of cultural barriers.
Often extended families didn’t approve of women taking overseas
assignments. It also seemed that the visa restrictions were particularly
onerous for women.
So there are some barriers around mobility if you are a woman.
What was the most surprising
conclusion from your research?
There’s a commuting challenge in terms of whether you get harassed.
Or in Brazil, for instance, they are particularly concerned about
kidnapping. In Latin America female executives are less able to park
their families in Costa Rica (for safety), which men are doing. In
Brazil and India, 30 percent of those women managers felt unsafe getting
to and from work, or attending a business meeting in the evening.
It got in the way of women in sales, who travel in semi-rural areas.
Women travelling alone are real targets. All of that was much more
powerful than we imagined. It’s something that a company absolutely can
do something about. Companies can arrange transportation, provide
escorts - all of these are important and it is starting to happen with
global companies and, in India, make a big difference in attrition
rates.
What can business leaders take away
from your study?
Every company is expanding in these geographies. And they realize
that you cannot ignore 55 percent of the best talent. There are 25
million women in emerging markets, in just the geographies we looked at,
that have really great credentials and are super well-qualified and want
ambitious careers. So there is really an imperative, and a real urgency,
to see these women and to understand that they are there and begin to
leverage this amazing talent. Because there are real shortages, real
bottlenecks and real constraints on growth are coming out of a war for
talent in emerging markets.
What companies or organizations are
getting it right? What can we emulate?
We have already 30 brand-new initiatives that have come out of this
study, whether you are talking about Siemens or Ernst Young or Deutsche
Bank or Google. They see this talent pool as critical in terms of
success going forward.
Siemens has a new program called the Engaging BRIC and ME, which is
Middle East, Talent Program.
It is a very targeted approach to giving specially tailored growth
opportunities to women and men.
A company like Intel has a fabulous new program in China called WIN,
Women at Intel Network. What they are trying to do there is create a
very active and supportive network amongst their female managers in
China.
A third example is Citigroup, which has something called the Latin
American Banker Mobility Program.
It essentially creates short-term global cross-country assignments
for their high-potential women so that hey can gain the kind of
international experience they need for upward mobility.
It may be hard for women to move for three years, but she could do it
for three months. She can get the exposure, the network and the global
experience without disrupting her family.
It is very easy to be kind of patronizing about emerging market women
because we tend to see them as kind of victims. It’s shifting one’s
view.
The big news of this report is that this is a very significant pool
of highly motivated and highly qualified people who are in some ways
kind of ahead of the curve, not behind the curve.
It is high time we recognize the heft and substance and enormous
potential of educated women in BRIC.
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