WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP:

ISSUES FROM A NEW ZEALAND

PERSPECTIVE

Di McCarthy

In recent years women have occupied some of New Zealand’s key leadership positions; such as

• Governor General

• Speaker of the House

• Chief Justice

• Prime Minister

• However, the profile of these individual women at the top does not reflect the status generally of women in professional life; and

• May mask the true picture of female participation in senior roles in other areas of New Zealand’s public life

• The number of women in senior leadership roles in NZ is actually declining.

• NZ now ranked 10th globally for female representation in business management, down from 4th five years ago.

• Women hold 19% of CEO roles down from 22% in 2006 and have only 54 of the 624 board of director positions in publically listed companies.

2008 NZ Census of Women’s participation showed:

• Women hold 19.91% of senior academic positions in NZ Universities

• Women represent 15.18% of Professor and 23.19% of Associate Professors

• Academic, managerial, public relations, marketing, budgeting, fund raising

University leadership is increasingly complex and requires a unique mix of skills, attributes, knowledge and abilities:

Universities face a number of significant challenges including:

• Funding levels

• An ageing academic workforce

• The impact of performance-based research assessments

• An increasingly competitive national and international education market

AVCC 2nd Action Plan for Women 2006Success in meeting these challenges will depend upon Universities:

• Drawing on more under-represented groups, especially women

• Attracting, appointing & retaining women in professional & management positions

• Improving the participation, success & leadership of women in research in order to capitalise on the intellectual potential of significant numbers of successful female undergraduates, honours students and research higher-degree students, and

• Developing their staff to take on leadership roles which involve management of significant financial and human resources and working in a competitive entrepreneurial and political environment

What is being done in New Zealand?

• New Zealand Women in Leadership programme in universities

• New Zealand Global Women’s Network

New Zealand Women in Leadership Programme

• An initiative for the New Zealand Tertiary Education Sector

• Established in 2007

• Seed funding provided by the Kate Edger Educational Charitable Trust

• Supported by NZVCC

Purpose of programme

• Enhance women’s leadership within NZ Universities

• Increase research management and funding strategies

• Build knowledge of governance and management relevant to higher education

• Develop networks

• Learn with a diverse group of women

Content of ProgrammeNZWIL includes sessions on:

• The macro higher education environment

• Research development

• Leadership within universities and across public and private sector

• Personal career development and promotion

• Mentoring and Networking

• The NZWIL programme does not duplicate or replace existing individual institutional activities

• It aims to develop a cohort of women leaders able to support and build on these initiatives

• It is lead by a Working Group whose members have extensive leadership and managerial experience in the tertiary sector, and who have a desire to

• Assist universities to enhance the potential of their female leadership, and

• Promote career progression for women in academic and general staff positions through a collaborative approach

• NZWIL has run 5 programmes to date

• 2 per year as a 1-week residential course in Wellington

• 99 females in total have completed the programme

80 Academic staff

19 General staff

• Another 20 General staff selected for the next programme in October.

• All Universities equally represented in all programmes

• Very positive evaluations from participants

• Very positive feedback from Universities regarding the value and benefits of the programme

Outcomes

• An Alumni has been established

• Participants have formed new contacts in politics, business and public service

• A Research Group has formed; longitudinal research study underway

Outcomes cont’d

• The inaugural NZWIL Conference was held November 2008 hosted by UoA, AUT and Waikato alumni; specific action areas identified as priorities for advancing women

Future Challenges:

• Women remain underrepresented in a number of critical spheres in the research environment: Research centres of excellence, in leadership, in representative decision making bodies, and in a number of key research intensive disciplines

• Ageing academic workforce (35% > 50 yrs in AUS & NZ)

Future Challenges: cont’d

• Under PBRF, increased emphasis on research productivity and quality

• Significant gaps opening up between star researchers and those more junior and less productive, and who may be employed on FT or PT contracts

Future Challenges: cont’d

• Women over-reprepresented in teaching positions and in disciplines which don’t attract large research dollars

• Workforce participation by women of child bearing age in NZ is low compared with OECD norms; provision of high quality and convenient childcare a priority

“What is clear is that if we do not find ways to improve the participation of women in research we are failing to achieve ‘productive diversity’ – failing to capitalise on the intellectual capital and potential of significant numbers of successful female undergraduates, honours students and research higher degree students, and out institutions and are sector are, and will continue to be, the poorer for our failure” (Bell & Bentley, 2005).

New Zealand Global Women

• A new organisation created to connect women leaders across businesses, sectors and international borders

• Recently launched by the PM, its primary objective is to build an effective core community of Global Women able to facilitate valuable connections locally and, particularly, internationally.

Goals:

• Increase leadership opportunities for members through diverse and supportive networks

• Provide a platform to share experiences, wisdom and perspectives

• Mentor and inspire future leaders

• Influence key decisions, and create a powerful voice to accelerate women in leadership

WHY IS ALL THIS IMPORTANT TO ME?

• One of the major issues facing Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) around the world today relates to the decline of young people, especially women, enrolling in these subjects and entering careers in these fields.

• This will have major consequences for capacity in Science and Engineering, particularly in developing countries where SET applications are vital in social and economic development.

• The issues of capacity and application of SET to development relate closely to considerations of diversity, equity, participation and career development for women in Science and Engineering.

• Women are under-represented in all areas of engineering, mathematics, physics and chemistry in most countries around the world.

• The situation at the tertiary and professional levels reflects the decline in young people’s, especially women’s, interest in science education at primary and secondary school.

• NOTE: Women constitute 2/3rds of the 700

million illiterate people in the developing world, and girls make up the majority of the 115 million children without access to primary school (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2006)

• The global science community has increasingly recognised the importance of gender issues in SET

• Beijing Platform for Action 1995

• Gender Indicators in Science, Engineering and Technology UNESCO 2007

• Women for Science Inter Academy Council 2006

NSF study showed:

• Worldwide it appears that women do not transfer their scientific qualifications into scientific occupations to the same degree as men.

• Women are not present in higher-level research, management and decision making to the same extent as men.

• Women’s scientific careers less stable and characterised by shorter-term temporary work rather than continuous tenure track.

NSF study showed: cont’d

• Women’s rate of exit from science is higher than other professions and twice that of men.

• Disruptions caused by the move of a partner, whose career tends to prevail.

• Returning to the workforce after child-rearing poses difficulties

• Candidates with no break in service more “desirable” than those who have been out of the workforce.

NSF study showed: cont’d

• Restrictions on travel major inhibitor of professional opportunities for women.

• Women over-represented in teaching positions.

• Men over-represented in more senior research and management/leadership positions.

WHAT IS NEEDED TO INCREASE THE NUMBERS OF WOMEN PROGRESSING

THROUGH SCIENCE EDUCATION, TRAINING AND CAREERS?

• Increased visibility

• Role models

• Mentoring and Networking

• Greater inclusiveness

• Resources for launching or re-establishing careers

• Career advice, research management

‘When a man is educated, an individual is educated;

When a woman is educated, a family and a country are educated’

Mahatma Gandhi