In turn, CEOs supply — and are paid for — that labor. Unfortunately, many discriminatory factors reduce the demand for female CEOs. For one thing, women are subject to gender stereotypes. The stereotypical qualities of effective leaders — such as aggression, ambition and dominance — tend to overlap with the stereotypical qualities of men more than women.
Another problem is women are the victims of in-group favoritism. People tend to evaluate others who are similar to them more favorably. These are the people responsible for hiring and paying CEOs, after all. Regarding supply-side forces, there simply are fewer women at these senior levels because of social factors.
Despite figures, gender diversity benefits companies in a number of ways. Having a diverse team is always beneficial to any company, even within the tech sector. It is crucial to have a balanced workforce when it comes to sharing ideas, leadership and creativity for new projects. They stress that departments should pay attention to the student experience as well as faculty diversity to improve recruitment and retention of women.
By: Catherine Hill, Ph. Donations are tax deductible. Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Full Report Download full report Download executive summary. Press Media inquiries Media coverage. Tweet Share Email. AAUW is a top-rated c 3 charity. However, female health workers are particularly vulnerable during times of conflict and insecurity. The lessons learnt from Ebola in Sierra Leone show that the frontline health workforce played an important role in controlling the spread of the Ebola outbreak through dissemination of accurate information, undertaking surveillance, contact tracing, and promoting hygienic practices [ 10 ].
Cambodia experienced nearly three decades of civil war and conflict from to The Khmer Rouge regime that lasted from to led to the loss of up to 3. After the Khmer Rouge, there were only an estimated 40 physicians remaining in the country [ 12 ].
Full peace was not achieved in Cambodia until The reform includes the formulation of the first Health Workforce Development Plan HWDP— , which aimed to address adequate production and equitable distribution of the health workforce to respond to the new health coverage plan [ 10 ].
The HWDP2 — aims to address the competency and management of the health workforce, followed by the third HWDP3 — , which focuses on structure, size and composition of the workforce, including recruitment, employment, deployment, productivity and staff remuneration [ 13 ]. Recruitment of health workers into the Cambodia health sector has been improved after almost twenty years of health system strengthening and human resource development.
By , Cambodia health sector employs a total of 25, health workers personal communication, humanresource department However, empowering women to enter leadership roles in the sector was still slow. Women are less likely to work at management positions or policy-making roles in all levels of the health system which includes the central, provincial, and operational health district and health center levels.
As such, women are less likely to be in senior professional, managerial and policy-making roles and have less opportunities to be prepared for new positions [ 14 , 15 ]. This situation raises several concerns that need addressing. Within Lebanon, for example, normal life experiences of female health workers, such as pregnancy and childcare, become problematized due to their incompatibility with male work models that do not take life course events into account [ 8 , 16 ].
Thirdly, given the social and cultural context, women prefer to be cared for by female health care workers. However, this care can often be met at the primary health care level, yet not at secondary and tertiary levels as there are few female doctors and specialists [ 17 ]. Better understanding and addressing these concerns are important for a responsive and equitable workforce.
Gender equity in the health workforce means both men and women are able to enjoy equal opportunities in, but not limited to, skill development and career advancement [ 8 ]. So far, very few studies on the health workforce have been conducted to explain the current gender disparities between male and female health workers in Cambodia. In addition, few studies have adopted a historical lens to understand the historical context and its impacts on the current gender inequity in health leadership in a post-conflict setting [ 18 , 19 ].
Using a qualitative life history method, this paper adapts the framework of Tlaiss [ 16 ] to explore gender norms at the macro, meso and micro level to explain the current female leadership disparity in Cambodia health sector. The findings of this study may have wide applicability to other countries affected by conflict in where gender inequity issues in leadership have not been fully addressed due to gender norms, roles and relations and their historical legacies grounded in conflict.
A qualitative methodology was used to explore experiences of health workers from their own perspectives. In-depth interviews with health managers deployed a life history approach, using an interview guide Additional file 1 developed to capture major life events and career history of health managers for this study. In this case - pre, during, and post conflict.
The use of a life history approach was important in two ways; firstly, it allowed researchers to capture and analyse the dynamics of gendered decision-making of participants in different political periods, and secondly, it helped empower participants as they were able to narrate using their own voices [ 20 ].
The selection of the two ODs was based on the high proportion of female managers at health centers and district offices. A positive deviance approach enabled us to document best practices, effective strategies or robust innovation of successful female leaders with the aim of promoting widespread uptake of such practices and to address the gender gap in health sector leadership [ 21 ].
Participants were purposively selected based on a combination of five criteria: age, service date, clinical skills, position, and leadership progression. Selected participants were age 40 or above and started their career during the s or s so that they were able to reflect on their experiences through time.
Interviews were recorded and transcribed in Khmer official Cambodian language and then translated into English. The research team employed inductive thematic analysis. Each transcript was analysed looking for different perspectives between female and male managers and information related to the effects of gender norms, roles, and relations on motivation and barriers at individual, household, community, or institutional levels.
Figure 1 shows the framework of analysis. Health workers were asked about their experience to enter, progress and advance their clinical skills and career progression in the health sector from the s to Table 2 describes the career pathway of the health workforce emerging from the life history analysis of our 20 participants.
Most life histories show that between the s—s women faced social, cultural and political constraints and restrictions in entering and studying in medical schools or performing their medical duty. However, since the s social and cultural stigmatization against women to enter and work within the medical profession reduced.
Poverty placed more burden on females in the family particularly older daughters , and opportunities to receive even general education were given to men sons in this period:. They discouraged me. Men were found to have no restrictions in terms of going out or studying far from home. As one male participant recalled:. A: Of course. Since the s, gender norms that discouraged girls to study away from home due to security problems, or study medical subjects because of perceived lower intelligence is not relevant anymore.
However, the expected roles of women in the household, such as childcare and household chores still existed. Like the previous periods, women had to juggle and find assistance to manage their situation. Finding support from partners and family members or hiring labour to assist them helped reduce burdens on women:. Even so, there is still a challenge to achieving gender equity within the home. Female managers also health providers found it difficult to combine domestic chores, including breastfeeding and taking care the elderly in the family, with their managerial roles.
In some cases, the female managers needed to leave their job early, bring children to work or take a break from their job for a period. Daughters love their parents more [than son], the son is busy with their own family. Male managers corroborated this view in that they believed women were responsible for household chores.
They emphasized that roles between men and women within the family were defined and that women are supposed to work inside household, while men are in charge of business outside the household:. Female facility managers emphasized the need for support from relatives and spouses.
Some female managers appreciated the support from their spouse to share child rearing and domestic chores, allowing more time for female managers to concentrate on work:. Societal views at the macro level after the s were still mainly biased towards men and accustomed to the norms that women are not suitable for decision-making roles. Some men still think women are not strong yet and still weaker than men. In addition, men are often considered as having better strategic vision and being more suitable in leadership roles.
Female managers also felt that their voice was less respected, that their age influenced the trust and respect they received, and that they were not perceived to the same degree of competency that men had:. To cope with this, a few perceived that female leaders need to work extra hard to improve their outputs, so that respect and trust could be gained.
In the past, there was no gender-sensitive policy at the organizational level that supported women to work and serve in the health sector. During the K5 period in the mids, while the number of female health workers was already small, women had to be on duty within conflict-affected areas, including stationed within forests with groups of militaries. This has placed women in a challenging position as societal gender norms were that women should not stay away from home or community.
Female health workers had to confront the stigmatized perceptions of their families or villagers and encountered security problems. Only peer support motivated them to stay in the job at that time. Both male and female health workers did not receive many chances to advance their clinical skills in the s and s. The lack of encouragement by managers was related to the staff shortage at the workplace. For example, it was difficult for managers, especially during the s, to send staff to study as they would lack the staff required to perform tasks within the facilities:.
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