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
University leadership is increasingly complex
and requires a unique mix of skills, attributes,
knowledge and abilities:
• Academic, managerial, public relations, marketing,
budgeting, fund raising
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 2006
Success 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 Programme
NZWIL 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