Survey finds more women in business locally
Keikantse Lesemela | Monday March 17, 2014 14:46
Released last week, the report ranked Botswana 14th among the 45 countries participating in the IBR survey this year. The IRB also found that in Botswana women in the most senior roles in companies remained at 32% between 2013 and 2014.
“Botswana businesses will see the benefit of widening their net as tapping into more candidates means higher chances of recruiting star performers,” the Grant Thornton report reads.
“These are the people who will ultimately determine businesses’ growth trajectory.”
Grant Thornton has been tracking the proportion of women in senior management since 2004 and the research this year found that representation globally had stagnated at 24% - the same result as in 2012, 2009 and 2007.
Zurich CEO Bilkiss Moorad, one of Botswana’s eminent women in business, said women have taken steps to improve their literacy. “It is no secret that women in Botswana form the fulcrum around which every family organises itself,” she said in a statement released by Grant Thornton.
“Through the years, this has become the de facto reality. Women today have moved forward and taken steps to educate themselves and with the high levels of literacy amongst them, the next step would be to use this education and take it to the next step.”
The research also indicates that female participation in education has been rising in many economies in recent years, particularly in emerging markets which have traditionally lagged behind.
According to the survey, a point where there are more women studying in tertiary education than men has been reached but debate remains whether the subjects women are studying are preparing them appropriately for jobs.
“In terms of industries, there is a much higher proportion of women in sectors such as education and social services, personal services (strong links to public sector) and also in hospitality,” the IBR reads.
The IBR also shows that support for the introduction of quotas for women on boards, is growing. Globally, nearly half of business leaders surveyed would now like to see quotas for the numbers of women on the boards of large listed companies, up from just over one in three in 2013.
Support has grown in the EU from 33 to 41% where the imposition of quotas are most likely as well as in the BRIC economies from 41 to 72%. Support remains high in Latin America at 68% and Asia Pacific at 57%. Across the G7, however, only 33% of business leaders are in support of quotas.