Top jobs are universally male-dominated. In response, feminists push for state-subsidised childcare, more involved fathers, and greater support for gender equality. But Canada has already embraced these initiatives, women work at very high rates, yet its senior management remains 64% male. So what’s propping up patriarchy?
I don't think Trudeau's cabinet is evidence enough to write off discrimination. Clearly, Canada is in a far better place than the US. And I suspect 64% male in top roles is a much better stat than we have in the US. But the underlying implicit bias is that tall white men look feel more like leaders than women or non-white men. There have been so many studies showing that all else being equal, the white man will be perceived as more competent. The higher you go in the organization, the more the promotion hinges on highly subjective factors. Top roles are not just predominantly male. They are predominantly tall white male. 58% of Fortune 500 CEOs are over 6' tall, compared to 15% of the population.
Two ideas, come to mind. I'd e interested to see what you think. 😊
1- Give it more time, changes in daycare availability, work-hour laws, etc are recent. Some changes are generational, culture is slow to adapt
2- Most people prefer to not have top jobs. No matter how many hollywood movies we watch about entrepreneurs and top executives, most people prefer "middle" jobs. And the people who tend to prefer these top jobs, as well as the people who tend to prefer risky jobs are men. Might be cultural (then refer to point 1) or might not be. [Bear in mind I am not saying most men prefer top jobs (I don't thnk that's true), I'm saying that, in the margin, among the people who prefer higher risk, higher stress, higher demand jobs, there's a higher % of men.]
Really odd to marshal so much data looking for explanation for gender disparities, but never question the assumption that men and women have the exact same distribution of cognitive traits or if said differences exist they shouldn't shape the choices made in the aggregate.
Utopias don't exist, so the question should never be "Why isn't X a utopia". For the specific question of having less women in senior management positions than the US, I usually hear the US contrasted with Europe (and, more specifically, Nordic social democracies). And there the explanation is often that those countries employ lots of women in state-subsidized positions like daycare, while the more cutthroat capitalist US pays enough post-tax income to encourage women to take a different career path. There it's also remarked that the time when the labor force really shifted with the largest percentage increase in women was in the wake of Reagan's marginal tax cuts, as married women with the option of staying home were marginal workers.
If you talk to stock traders or finance people instead of economists, they generally think of Canada as a commodity exporter. All commodity exporting countries tend to have misleading aggregate statistics where most people are employed in the service sector. The value-add or lynchpin of the economies are still reliant on commodity prices and sales.
A better representation may be if you look at the Toronto Stock Exchange and its sectoral breakdown. Financials and Energy are almost 50% of the market cap weighted representatives of the companies there; typical of commodity exporters. If you compare that with the US which has 27% of companies in IT, but people often say off handedly 50% of the US stock market is tech. This is because S&P assigns various "tech" companies to different sectors. Google and Facebook are in Communications; Amazon is a consumer discretionary company.
I would gather that the type of economy that Canada has is more skewed towards men and the more fully developed mixed economy that America has benefits women.
I don't think Trudeau's cabinet is evidence enough to write off discrimination. Clearly, Canada is in a far better place than the US. And I suspect 64% male in top roles is a much better stat than we have in the US. But the underlying implicit bias is that tall white men look feel more like leaders than women or non-white men. There have been so many studies showing that all else being equal, the white man will be perceived as more competent. The higher you go in the organization, the more the promotion hinges on highly subjective factors. Top roles are not just predominantly male. They are predominantly tall white male. 58% of Fortune 500 CEOs are over 6' tall, compared to 15% of the population.
Two ideas, come to mind. I'd e interested to see what you think. 😊
1- Give it more time, changes in daycare availability, work-hour laws, etc are recent. Some changes are generational, culture is slow to adapt
2- Most people prefer to not have top jobs. No matter how many hollywood movies we watch about entrepreneurs and top executives, most people prefer "middle" jobs. And the people who tend to prefer these top jobs, as well as the people who tend to prefer risky jobs are men. Might be cultural (then refer to point 1) or might not be. [Bear in mind I am not saying most men prefer top jobs (I don't thnk that's true), I'm saying that, in the margin, among the people who prefer higher risk, higher stress, higher demand jobs, there's a higher % of men.]
I really enjoyed this post - it's an interesting conundrum.
Really odd to marshal so much data looking for explanation for gender disparities, but never question the assumption that men and women have the exact same distribution of cognitive traits or if said differences exist they shouldn't shape the choices made in the aggregate.
Utopias don't exist, so the question should never be "Why isn't X a utopia". For the specific question of having less women in senior management positions than the US, I usually hear the US contrasted with Europe (and, more specifically, Nordic social democracies). And there the explanation is often that those countries employ lots of women in state-subsidized positions like daycare, while the more cutthroat capitalist US pays enough post-tax income to encourage women to take a different career path. There it's also remarked that the time when the labor force really shifted with the largest percentage increase in women was in the wake of Reagan's marginal tax cuts, as married women with the option of staying home were marginal workers.
If you talk to stock traders or finance people instead of economists, they generally think of Canada as a commodity exporter. All commodity exporting countries tend to have misleading aggregate statistics where most people are employed in the service sector. The value-add or lynchpin of the economies are still reliant on commodity prices and sales.
A better representation may be if you look at the Toronto Stock Exchange and its sectoral breakdown. Financials and Energy are almost 50% of the market cap weighted representatives of the companies there; typical of commodity exporters. If you compare that with the US which has 27% of companies in IT, but people often say off handedly 50% of the US stock market is tech. This is because S&P assigns various "tech" companies to different sectors. Google and Facebook are in Communications; Amazon is a consumer discretionary company.
I would gather that the type of economy that Canada has is more skewed towards men and the more fully developed mixed economy that America has benefits women.
https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/sp-tsx-composite-index/#data