Gender Roles & Compensation Inequity in Modern Workplace: An In-Depth Analysis

The positive effects women leaders can have on a company have not only been proven in the United States, they have been seen worldwide. European firms with the highest percent of women in roles with significant influence saw their stock value climb an extra seventeen percent over a two year period compared to the average (64 percent vs. 47 percent) (Tuhus – Dubrow, 2009). When the stock market took a huge tumble in 2008, a French business professor found that the stock price for companies with more female managers declined less than the average on the French stock market (Tuhus -Dubrow, 2009).

And after Iceland’s finances collapsed, they dispatched a team, with the majority of the members being female, to clean up the mess (Tuhus – Dubrow, 2009).

Not only do women help companies in the present, they can also help prevent future mistakes or troubles. Some even speculate that the 2008 financial crisis could have been severely lessened, or perhaps even avoided, if more women had been at the helm.

This could be attributed to the fact that women and men have different management styles. Barbara Annis and John Gray (2013) found that men’s thoughts and opinions are often formed and stated quickly and that they look at team work as “as a quick, agenda – driven exercise to confirm or calibrate a course of action” and the sooner they can wrap up the meeting and get back to work, the better. Women on the other hand, consider teamwork and collaboration to be an essential part of work.

A professor at the London School of Economics also found evidence that shows that women tend to be more risk – averse than men. He also concluded that women on boards would be more vigilant than men and would have paid more attention to what executives were doing. He believes that this could have drawn attention to the brewing pot of problems before the pot exploded in 2008 (Tuhus -Dubrow, 2009). Being vigilant and attentive to the goings on in a company could have alerted the proper people to the issues that were about the destroy the economy and once identified, women’s leadership style could have brought a team together and created a cohesive environment that would have been more difficult, or even impossible, to obtain through the leadership style most men exhibit.

When companies look at the time and expenses associated with eliminating gender inequality in the workplace, it is easy to just stick it on an endless to do list and forget about it. That is a terrible choice because women can add great value, both socially and more importantly to a lot of executives, monetarily, to a company. If companies choose to disregard gender issues, they will only be hurting themselves and their future growth and success.

Conclusion

Women have made great strides in both education and the utilization of that education in the workforce over the past sixty years. More women than ever are receiving higher education, in numbers that are even surpassing that of men. They are then entering the workforce with high hopes and dreams of future success. While women are still making progress, they are met with several large barriers that significantly impact that progress. These barriers have led to a substantial wage gap between genders. Companies need to address the gender diversity problems plaguing the modern workplace quickly and systematically because women in higher roles lead to greater profitability and success. This success is unlimited, and companies will cripple their potential if they do not remedy the inequality in the workforce.