Women are storming emerging-world boardrooms

In China, 32 per cent of senior managers are female, compared with 23 per cent in America and 19 per cent in Britain. In India, 11 per cent of chief executives of large companies are female, compared with 3 per cent of Fortune 500 bosses in America and 3 per cent of FTSE 100 bosses in Britain. Turkey and Brazil come third and joint fourth (behind Finland and Norway) in the World Economic Forum’s ranking of countries by the proportion of CEOs who are women. In Brazil, 11 per cent of chief executives and 30 per cent of senior executives are women.

Young, middle-class women are overtaking their male peers when it comes to education. In the United Arab Emirates 65 per cent of university graduates are female. In Brazil and China the figures are 60 per cent and 47 per cent respectively. In Russia 57 per cent of college-age women are enrolled in tertiary education; only 43 per cent of men are. Business schools, those hothouses of capitalism, are feminising fast. Some 33 per cent of students at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai and 26 per cent at the Indian School of Business are female, a figure comparable with those of Western schools such as the Harvard Business School and Insead.

Wise firms therefore focus on the two biggest problems for working women in emerging markets: looking after their aging parents, which is typically more of a problem than child care, and commuting. A growing number of companies provide flexi-time so that women can work from home. Ernst & Young holds family days to show parents what their daughters have achieved. It also offers medical cover for parents. Many companies provide their female staff with late-night shuttle buses – and female-only taxi companies are springing up in India, the UAE and Brazil.

Source:
Economist