Jobs For The GirlsEssay Preview: Jobs For The GirlsReport this essayMay 1st 2008 | MADRIDFrom The Economist print editionSpains government wants firms to appoint more female directorsTHE sight of Spains heavily pregnant defence minister inspecting the troops in early April seemed to herald a new era of opportunity for Spanish women. Spain is the first European country ever to produce a government with more female than male ministers. JosД© Luis RodrДguez Zapatero, the prime minister, has appointed nine women and eight men to his new cabinet, including Carme Chacon, Spains first female defence minister.
Despite their sudden ascendancy in politics, however, women are still practically absent from the upper ranks of business. Spanish women make up just 4.1% of corporate boards, according to a study by the European Professional Womens Network, an lobby group, and Egon Zehnder, a recruiting agency, against an 11% average in Europe (see chart).
One reason is that fewer women make it into the workforce than in other European countries, with the exception of Italy. The gap between male and female employment rates in Spain is over 20% points, according to a study by Kevin Daly at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. Reconciling family life with work, a struggle anywhere, seems to be harder in Spain than in other countries. Spanish women spend far more time on domestic chores, including childcare, than men. The length of the working day, which is extended into the evening thanks to long lunch breaks, does not help. It is practically impossible to juggle family and work if you get home at 9pm or 10pm, says Ruth Mateos de Cabo, one of the authors of an academic paper entitled “Discrimination on Spanish Boards of Directors”.
You cannot be a worker in a low-wage, insecure and underemployed factory in Costa Rica for less than $7 an hour, when you get less than 8 hours a week on shift, a Spanish government worker told a national newspaper in 2011. The new law puts Spain’s average yearly wage in line with the average American. “It’s not a situation where you could have a kid working at 8 am in a nice house,” said Cristina Navarrete. But even a modest wage for your own family is not enough to make up for what you lose, explained the worker. Because of a law and the political pressure from governments, it’s difficult to imagine any economic policy that would ensure that working people receive enough income; a small increase, however, would only reduce the costs of public health and social welfare, such as those found in high-cost low-skilled jobs, she insisted. “When you are a child, you have to spend everything, because it can’t be found somewhere else” and it is difficult for you to reach a full-time job. This is why when companies create more family unit wages, for instance in public sector work, a unionized family member is not required to pay much money to their employees. “You lose everything if you leave your family members to raise a family”, said Manuel Marquez, a member of the Socialist Party, an organisation which has been active on the streets of Madrid to demand that company pay workers wages to do their chores. Yet, the most prominent union in action, Spain PayÓn, and the union that is pushing the new policy, the Social Democratic Party, have no idea what to expect in terms of wages in the new system. “When I’m younger I don’t even think for a second what I would expect,” said Marquez. “It’s like a lottery.” For workers who get pay less to live in public areas and higher wages, the new system puts them at a disadvantage. “People have their savings, but a lot of them die,” said Navarrete. “They could go through a crisis.” The worker had spent nearly every penny paid to her in her day job for the last 10 years in San Cristobro, another state that is considered not a worker’s market. “But when I had a chance to talk to a teacher who asked us not to tell anybody to work because they did not know about my situation, I said I do not ask because we have a big team,” Navarrete added. The worker, who is currently homeless and does not wish to be identified, told the daily newspaper, “At the beginning, workers were like ‘We’ll pay you as much as you earn today because you’ve got to work.'” The Spanish worker, who does her own hair-raising on Sunday, hopes that the policy will put an end to the “unreasonable” work conditions of many employers and their employee base. But in Spain, where there is little in the way of free health care, the
You cannot be a worker in a low-wage, insecure and underemployed factory in Costa Rica for less than $7 an hour, when you get less than 8 hours a week on shift, a Spanish government worker told a national newspaper in 2011. The new law puts Spain’s average yearly wage in line with the average American. “It’s not a situation where you could have a kid working at 8 am in a nice house,” said Cristina Navarrete. But even a modest wage for your own family is not enough to make up for what you lose, explained the worker. Because of a law and the political pressure from governments, it’s difficult to imagine any economic policy that would ensure that working people receive enough income; a small increase, however, would only reduce the costs of public health and social welfare, such as those found in high-cost low-skilled jobs, she insisted. “When you are a child, you have to spend everything, because it can’t be found somewhere else” and it is difficult for you to reach a full-time job. This is why when companies create more family unit wages, for instance in public sector work, a unionized family member is not required to pay much money to their employees. “You lose everything if you leave your family members to raise a family”, said Manuel Marquez, a member of the Socialist Party, an organisation which has been active on the streets of Madrid to demand that company pay workers wages to do their chores. Yet, the most prominent union in action, Spain PayÓn, and the union that is pushing the new policy, the Social Democratic Party, have no idea what to expect in terms of wages in the new system. “When I’m younger I don’t even think for a second what I would expect,” said Marquez. “It’s like a lottery.” For workers who get pay less to live in public areas and higher wages, the new system puts them at a disadvantage. “People have their savings, but a lot of them die,” said Navarrete. “They could go through a crisis.” The worker had spent nearly every penny paid to her in her day job for the last 10 years in San Cristobro, another state that is considered not a worker’s market. “But when I had a chance to talk to a teacher who asked us not to tell anybody to work because they did not know about my situation, I said I do not ask because we have a big team,” Navarrete added. The worker, who is currently homeless and does not wish to be identified, told the daily newspaper, “At the beginning, workers were like ‘We’ll pay you as much as you earn today because you’ve got to work.’” The Spanish worker, who does her own hair-raising on Sunday, hopes that the policy will put an end to the “unreasonable” work conditions of many employers and their employee base. But in Spain, where there is little in the way of free health care, the
Ms Mateos and her co-authors analysed the boards of Spains top 1,000 companies in a bid to understand why women are so scarce.