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Thirty years ago, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, set the world on a new course, establishing strategic objectives and actions to advance women and achieve gender equality. On October 13 and 14 in Beijing, the Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women will bring together stakeholders to renew the spirit of the 1995 Conference, accelerate the implementation of the declaration and platform for action, promote gender equality, support women’s all-round development, and foster a community with a shared future for humanity. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will attend the meeting’s opening ceremony and deliver a keynote speech, has long championed women’s development globally. At the 2015 UN Global Leaders’ Meeting on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, he outlined four guiding principles: synchronizing women’s development with social and economic progress, safeguarding rights, fostering inclusive societies and creating favorable international conditions. China’s advance of ‘her power’ Over the past three decades, China has consistently upheld the spirit of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, achieving remarkable progress in women’s rights and opportunities. Since 2013, targeted poverty alleviation has lifted millions of women out of poverty in the country, with 690 million now enjoying a moderately prosperous standard of living. Meanwhile, women now constitute 45.8 percent of China’s scientific workforce, over half of internet entrepreneurs and 42.3 percent of judges nationwide, reflecting greater leadership opportunities. And with an average life expectancy exceeding 80 years and recognition by the World Health Organization as a top performer in maternal and child health, women’s well-being continues to improve steadily. These accomplishments are rooted in institutional guarantees and decisive actions. Gender equality is enshrined as a basic national policy, and women’s development has been incorporated into the country’s Five-sphere Integrated Plan. Comprehensive measures – targeted poverty […]

To build up their experience capital, women can pick the occupations, industries, and geographies that present the best opportunities to enhance their careers. Workplaces are full of talented, educated, and hardworking women. Many are caught off guard when, several years into their careers, they see that they are falling behind their peers, and they can’t put a finger on exactly how or why. Women, after all, are doing everything they can to prepare themselves for successful careers. As early as kindergarten, girls on average outperform boys across all disciplines, including math. Women in almost all developed countries earn undergraduate and graduate degrees at higher rates on average than men, with better grade point averages. Yet quite quickly after graduation, many women start losing ground in the workplace. For example, despite making up 59 percent of college graduates in the United States, women represent only 48 percent of those entering the corporate workforce. And then come the first promotions to management roles: For every 100 men, only 81 women are promoted. The blended average of 81 women overall breaks down to 99 Asian women, 89 White women, 65 Latina women, and 54 Black women. This advancement gap persists and compounds over women’s careers, with lower representation of women at every step of the corporate-leadership ladder. We call this phenomenon the “broken rung.” The first broken rung of the corporate ladder opens up a gender gap that widens further at every subsequent rung, including senior-leadership positions. It is that first broken rung, however, that affects the entire talent pipeline. Despite initiatives to improve gender parity in the corporate ranks over the past decades, gains have been modest. The largest improvement has been in the C-suite, where women have moved from being one in five top executives to just over one in four reporting […]

Top organisations are deploying a range of strategies to address the known issues affecting women’s advancement.   While  companies are increasingly active in their efforts to drive gender equality, women remain underrepresented in the career pipeline. Women constitute 42 percent of all employees, yet make up just a quarter of executives and only 10 percent of CEOs for large, for-profit companies. The transition point from key management positions to CEO has the highest drop off (59 percent) in women’s representation of any in the pipeline. Over the past three years, the average growth rate across all industries in women taking leadership roles stands at 2.8 percent, with public administration and with rental, hiring, and real-estate services leading the pack at 19.6 percent and 15.1 percent growth rates, respectively. Despite the positive trajectory, women’s representation in management, C-suite, and CEO roles continues to be a particular challenge. Progress at the very top is expected to be slow Beyond today’s pipeline numbers, the low numbers of women in key management roles presents a challenge that is difficult to change in the near term. Of the 24 percent of women in key management roles today, many of them are in support roles, such as head of human resources and general counsel. Research on workplace diversity reveals, around 90 percent of CEO appointments come from line roles such as chief operating officer or head of a business division. This means the near-term pipeline of women who are in line for CEO appointments is even smaller than it appears. Efforts to achieve gender equality are apparent The objective to achieve gender equality and change these dynamics is evident. Companies implement stand-alone gender-equity strategies. Recruitment policies are the most emphasised area. However, while policies are a useful tool for progressing toward gender balance, they alone do […]