I am woman, hear me …meow? Few women senior officers at big companies: study

As the world marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day next week, a study suggests few Canadian women hold the reigns of power at big companies.

The 2010 Catalyst Census looked at women senior officers at the Financial Post 500 companies. It found women’s advancement into the executive suite has been a crawl, rather than a gallop, over the past couple of years.

Researchers reported 17.7 per cent of women were senior officers at the FP500 companies as of June 1, up slightly from 16.9 per cent in 2008.

“The pace of change has been glacially slow, when we consider that women’s representation in senior officer positions increased by less than one percentage point over two years,” said Catalyst spokeswoman Deborah Gillis.

“While there’s much to celebrate over the last 100 years, what our research shows is that women continue to be underrepresented in leadership,” she said.

Women are still stereotyped in the workplace. Often they have mentors who support them, but men are more likely to have sponsors inside companies who recommend them for top jobs, said Gillis.

Canadians might be surprised that 142 companies listed, or 30 per cent, had no women as senior officers, she said.

Senior officers were defined as someone in charge of a principle business unit, division or function, board-elected officers or who perform a policy-making function.

Companies listed without women senior officers included Bombardier, AbitibiBowater, Apotex and Transat A.T. Inc. They declined comment because they hadn’t seen the census.

Few women had shot through the ranks in traditionally male-dominated industries such as waste management, agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting and construction, the study suggested.

Women were more likely to rise to the top in accommodation and food services, public administration, finance and insurance and arts, entertainment and recreation.

What was encouraging to Gillis was that the number of public companies listed with 25 per cent or more women senior officers rose 7.7 points in the last two years.

At the Bank of Nova Scotia, nine of its 21 senior officers were women — almost 43 per cent.

Anne Marie O’Donovan, executive vice-president and chief administration officer at Scotia Capital, said having women in the bank’s senior ranks has been a key strategy for several years.

“We need to make sure we’ve got top talent and having women in senior positions is known to contribute to bottom-line financial performance,” said O’Donovan.

The bank provides employees with mentors and helps them network with senior executives, she said.

O’Donovan’s advice for making it to the top? Get a good education, always do a great job, take on new opportunities and stretch outside your comfort zone.

Companies with the highest percentage of women as senior officers were Coast Capital Savings at 77.8 per cent, followed by State Farm Group, Dundee Corp. and Lululemon Athletica.

Corporations favour hiring men at all job levels, said Queen’s University law professor Kathleen Lahey.

Globalization, weak enforcement of employment equity laws, access to employment insurance and child care hold women back, she said.

Women’s incomes lost ground in the 1991 recession and continue to lag. Women with a university degree earned 68.3 per cent of what their male counterparts earned in 2008, while in 1990, it was 86.8 per cent, she said.

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