Asian women still lacking workplace equality
The survey by The Asia Society used data from the United Nations, the Economic Forum and other sources to determine women's status in health, education, economic activity and political leadership in the region.
It found the gender gap was narrowest and women's leadership strongest in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Mongolia.
On the other end of spectrum are India, Pakistan, Nepal, South Korea and Cambodia.
The report's author, Professor Astrid S.Tuminez, from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public policy in Singapore, says if Asia doesn't embrace its female population in the workplace, many of its achievements could be put in peril.
Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speaker: Professor Astrid S. Tuminez, author of report from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore
TUMINEZ: Ok so if you look at closing the gender gap for example the countries that perform the best, you have New Zealand, the Philippines, Australia, as well as Sri Lanka and Mongolia. And if you look at certain parameters such as women in senior management, and women CEOs, the percentages, you have countries like Singapore and Thailand also joining some of the top performers. And then as far as women's participation in the workforce, countries like China and others in East Asia have a very high rate of women's participation. The issue of course is whether participation is of high quality, i.e. are these jobs secure, can they move up the management ranks, are they paid well and so on. The losers sadly most of them are the South Asian countries. So Pakistan, Nepal, India tend to perform very poorly on practically all parameters, except in one, there are a number of women leaders in sub national government. And that's primarily because these countries have had quotas, they mandate that a certain percentage of women for example should have seats in local village councils. Asia as a whole also does very well in having heads of state who are women, so more than any other region in the world, Asia has had more heads of state.
COCHRANE: Interesting that you say that a lot of the countries that aren't doing so well in terms of what you're describing are from South Asia, and then you've got Sri Lanka that is doing quite well. What is it that Sri Lanka's doing differently to encourage and foster women's participation and women's leadership?
TUMINEZ: Sri Lanka actually it's a bit mixed, so when you say Sri Lanka is doing well, that's on the parameters of closing the gender gap, not in terms of leadership as a whole.
COCHRANE: So can you explain what that means then closing the gender gap?
TUMINEZ: Closing the gender gap means basically that you're looking at parameters such as educational attainment, political empowerment, health and education and you're asking are resources spent more or less equally towards boys and girls and towards men and women? So that's just it, you're not measuring exactly the outcomes yet, it's just that there are resources being divided more or less equally, how are they distributed between the genders. So if you look at a country like Sri Lanka and then you break it down, the performance will be quite mixed. And then on leadership, again looking at the public sector, private sector and then even in NGOs, and NGOs the data unfortunately has not been systematically gathered or collected yet, so the performances will be mixed. The countries that perform worst, if you look at India and Pakistan there are so many limitations to women. So for example six out of ten women in India don't even try to get a job or go to work, marriage, but in Sri Lanka that's slighty better. And then you also have the sex ratio issue where in India there's a very high rate of selective foeticide against girl babies. That's been facilitated obviously by technology and other things but when you have factors like that it creates a pathway that's very difficult for girls and women from the very beginning because of how they're valued and how they're perceived.
COCHRANE: What about some of the lessons that can perhaps be drawn from this study? What are some of the things that the countries who are promoting women's participation in the workforce and equality for women in the workforce, what are some of the things that they're doing well at a policy level or on a legislation level?
TUMINEZ: Ok so the first lesson is that I will just say countries in Asia can no longer afford really to ignore their women and not help them move through the ranks because there's a talent crunch going on in Asia, as many as 45 per cent of employers in Asia Pacific report having difficulty finding employees because there's not enough talent so you can't afford to ignore the women. Now on the policy front one of the arguments in the report is that affirmative action helps because it's the quickest way to increase the representation of women, and does not hurt efficiency. So the counter argument is that it makes people judge women and say they're just there because of affirmative action. So what you can do to address that is make affirmative action limited let's say to ten years. The other lesson to be drawn is that rich countries such as Japan and South Korea, even though they have the highest human development it's really quite interesting to observe that in terms of women's leadership they have some of the lowest indicators and they also have some of the highest rates of drop-out between the middle level of management to the senior level of management. So these countries again because they've got ageing populations they need talent, they can ill-afford if they want to keep growing and they want to meet the needs of their societies, they have to promote the women and help them so that they persevere in their careers and are able to fulfill dual roles as professionals as well as mothers and wives.
It found the gender gap was narrowest and women's leadership strongest in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Mongolia.
On the other end of spectrum are India, Pakistan, Nepal, South Korea and Cambodia.
The report's author, Professor Astrid S.Tuminez, from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public policy in Singapore, says if Asia doesn't embrace its female population in the workplace, many of its achievements could be put in peril.
Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speaker: Professor Astrid S. Tuminez, author of report from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore
TUMINEZ: Ok so if you look at closing the gender gap for example the countries that perform the best, you have New Zealand, the Philippines, Australia, as well as Sri Lanka and Mongolia. And if you look at certain parameters such as women in senior management, and women CEOs, the percentages, you have countries like Singapore and Thailand also joining some of the top performers. And then as far as women's participation in the workforce, countries like China and others in East Asia have a very high rate of women's participation. The issue of course is whether participation is of high quality, i.e. are these jobs secure, can they move up the management ranks, are they paid well and so on. The losers sadly most of them are the South Asian countries. So Pakistan, Nepal, India tend to perform very poorly on practically all parameters, except in one, there are a number of women leaders in sub national government. And that's primarily because these countries have had quotas, they mandate that a certain percentage of women for example should have seats in local village councils. Asia as a whole also does very well in having heads of state who are women, so more than any other region in the world, Asia has had more heads of state.
COCHRANE: Interesting that you say that a lot of the countries that aren't doing so well in terms of what you're describing are from South Asia, and then you've got Sri Lanka that is doing quite well. What is it that Sri Lanka's doing differently to encourage and foster women's participation and women's leadership?
TUMINEZ: Sri Lanka actually it's a bit mixed, so when you say Sri Lanka is doing well, that's on the parameters of closing the gender gap, not in terms of leadership as a whole.
COCHRANE: So can you explain what that means then closing the gender gap?
TUMINEZ: Closing the gender gap means basically that you're looking at parameters such as educational attainment, political empowerment, health and education and you're asking are resources spent more or less equally towards boys and girls and towards men and women? So that's just it, you're not measuring exactly the outcomes yet, it's just that there are resources being divided more or less equally, how are they distributed between the genders. So if you look at a country like Sri Lanka and then you break it down, the performance will be quite mixed. And then on leadership, again looking at the public sector, private sector and then even in NGOs, and NGOs the data unfortunately has not been systematically gathered or collected yet, so the performances will be mixed. The countries that perform worst, if you look at India and Pakistan there are so many limitations to women. So for example six out of ten women in India don't even try to get a job or go to work, marriage, but in Sri Lanka that's slighty better. And then you also have the sex ratio issue where in India there's a very high rate of selective foeticide against girl babies. That's been facilitated obviously by technology and other things but when you have factors like that it creates a pathway that's very difficult for girls and women from the very beginning because of how they're valued and how they're perceived.
COCHRANE: What about some of the lessons that can perhaps be drawn from this study? What are some of the things that the countries who are promoting women's participation in the workforce and equality for women in the workforce, what are some of the things that they're doing well at a policy level or on a legislation level?
TUMINEZ: Ok so the first lesson is that I will just say countries in Asia can no longer afford really to ignore their women and not help them move through the ranks because there's a talent crunch going on in Asia, as many as 45 per cent of employers in Asia Pacific report having difficulty finding employees because there's not enough talent so you can't afford to ignore the women. Now on the policy front one of the arguments in the report is that affirmative action helps because it's the quickest way to increase the representation of women, and does not hurt efficiency. So the counter argument is that it makes people judge women and say they're just there because of affirmative action. So what you can do to address that is make affirmative action limited let's say to ten years. The other lesson to be drawn is that rich countries such as Japan and South Korea, even though they have the highest human development it's really quite interesting to observe that in terms of women's leadership they have some of the lowest indicators and they also have some of the highest rates of drop-out between the middle level of management to the senior level of management. So these countries again because they've got ageing populations they need talent, they can ill-afford if they want to keep growing and they want to meet the needs of their societies, they have to promote the women and help them so that they persevere in their careers and are able to fulfill dual roles as professionals as well as mothers and wives.
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