We Should Overcome Stereotypes In Women Workforce

As the humanitarian organization CARE said, “Women are the most underutilized natural resource in the world”. It is utterly sad to think that we might be neglecting the talent of half of the population. On a globalized world remaining competitive is a key towards success to any corporation. It does not matter how consolidated our company might be, competitors can arise in any moment and if they do benefit from the capacity of the half we are ignoring our chances to succeed might drop alarmingly. It is true that there is a capital difference between the male workforce and the female one, the pregnancy. The materialization of such a basic function of animals as the reproduction it thought to cause hard losses to the work environment. However, through data it will be proved that this is more a myth than a fact and as a company we can benefit more from fresh talent brought by the women of our country than we can suffer from the process of bringing the kids of tomorrow.

Data from the National Center for Education Statistic shows that more women go through secondary education. From the beginning of the XXI century, each year, there are more women attaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees. We cannot obviate a population so well prepared. Even worldwide the OECD data shows that in each of the 35 member countries girls do much better on reading assessments scoring on average 27 points more than their male peers. It is true that on mathematics and science we find more levered scores but it is also true how strongly male-skewed are these disciplines due to how onerous is for most girls to overcome stereotypes.

When the Family Medical Leave Act appeared on 1993 lots of papers were written about the pros and cons of it and numerous alarms where ringed to call attention to the damage it would cause to companies. A quarter of a century has gone by since then and the truth is that we are better than ever. First of all, as the act states, the leave is unpaid and remains in the company power of decision to pay or not for it.

Data from 2012 Family and Medical Leave Technical Report from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that paid parental leave (parental meaning both paternal and maternal) is not common. Even just looking at maternity leave not even a quarter of the workplaces offer paid leave. This means that there is no necessity of adding an economic burden to the leave and we would just need to deal with covering the job until the employee is back. In fact, men ask for payed leave (47.9%) more than women (38.1%). It is a fact that women take this leaves more often than men as the next figure shows. However, if we compare the evolution between male and female workforces from 1995 to 2012 we can see that, while women have remained steady, men have experienced a climbing pattern, cutting the difference with their female colleagues as the last three columns show.

This tells us that female leaves are a sure, predictable issue whereas male leave is something that one day could surprise us and our human resources department too. This also leads to the fact that female leaves coming from pregnancy, if notified in time, is a predictable leave that can be carried out easily. Male leaves, coming from more unpredictable sources are a tougher issue to deal with as the following table from the FMLA Technical report shows. There are no evidences at all to support that not hiring women is beneficial for any company. A piece of news talking about sixteen nurses is nothing but an exceptional miracle. Furthermore, in this article, we already find out that the hospital already took care of the issue by covering their shifts appropriately and there is the fact that holidays in the middle will alleviate much of it. However, we have seen how data from all sources support the incredible value they can bring to the workplace. Women are strong, that is undeniable and so should be their place in our company.