Remuneration: help, women managers are still less well paid than men
Male executives earn on average 8% more than female executives.
Despite the laws, the reminders to the law, the equality index (revised and corrected) and the obligation of salary catch-up envelopes and all the rest, we take the same figures and we start again: with equivalent positions and skills, the male executives still earn more (+8%) than their female counterparts. A figure that is sadly increasing (+1% in one year) according to the Apec study published in March 2022.
If we go into a little detail, we see that from the start of their career, women have lower salaries than men (- 3% for those under 35). And over the years, this gap widens to reach -11% for the over 55s. For equivalent positions and skills, let’s remember! However, this unbearable discrepancy does not really seem to be an official pebble in the shoes of executives. Only 43% of men and 58% of women managers think there is a real pay gap. For women, this figure is even tending to decline, while the wage gap between the genders is only widening to their detriment. Is it because clubs communicate more on the subject and women are satisfied with fine speeches? Is it because women have become accustomed to earning less and therefore throw in the towel a bit on the subject? Is it because women have other fish to fry than to scrutinize their job descriptions (one thinks in particular of the daily management of family life which unfortunately still falls mainly to them)? Is it a bit of all three? Without a doubt. In any case, with equal positions and skills, the wage gap between women and men executives is widening and no one cares.
A reason to hope anyway: according to a Figures study, a real-time remuneration application, conducted with 445 European companies, the more transparent the boxes are on remuneration, the less the gaps between women and men in the same position are important.
Pay gap for the same position
- 3.5% for non-transparent companies
2.4% for companies whose company policy is transparent
2% for companies whose company policy and salary grid are transparent 0% for companies whose transparency is total
Career progression: women gain access to a certain form of management
In 2023, is the famous glass ceiling that prevents women from climbing to the top of organizational charts exploding in flight? Is it splitting or on the contrary still in perfect condition? On this point again, it is clear that there is work.
Access to management
Only 33% of women executives are managers compared to 46% of men
Source: Apec
First in terms of access to management responsibilities. According to an Apec study, 33% of women executives are managers compared to 46% of men. And this, from the beginning of their career. Worse, from year to year, this figure tends to drop. “This under-representation of female executives in management positions deprives a number of women of role models they could draw inspiration from: only 29% of female executives are now managed by a woman, while 79% of male executives are managed by a man”, notes Apec.
Pseudo-management positions
And then, when they gain access to management positions, their position more often resembles proximity management but without any real hierarchical responsibility. The size of their team, the status of their collaborators, the scope of their budget… is generally below what is offered to men. If we had to summarize and caricature a little (yes, let’s force the line to understand better), we would be talking about a pseudo management, or a title to please but which does not pay (since the salary does not follow).
Glass ceiling before the codir
23% of women in the CAC40 executive committees and 22% in the SBF120 while they represent 33% of executives
Similarly, women are less likely than men to join the management committee or comex. “Women represent only 22.95% of the members of the executive committees of CAC 40 companies, whereas they represent 35.46% of the executive population, a traditional source of recruitment for managers, underlines the latest Skema Observatory on the feminization of companies.
Within the SBF 120, there are still only 26.81% of women in these bodies according to the study on the feminization of the governing bodies of this index. On a like-for-like basis, today there is a lack 212 women in the SBF 120 comex to reach the 40% threshold. So many women to promote or recruit. Not to mention the professionals who will have to be replaced over the period. To reach this new proportion imposed by the Rixain law by March 1, 2030, the big names in the CAC 40 will have to appoint and/or hire 78 additional women. Ladies, to your resume!
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Parental leave and paternity: fathers, present in the short term but absent in the long term
70% of executive fathers take their paternity leave
Let’s start with the good news : 7 out of 10 fathers take their paternity leave, half of them in the month following the birth according to a Cereq study. Except that, as often, this figure hides strong disparity. On the subject, the highest earners in general do not lead by example. “The best-paid fathers are likely to value their investment in their job or to feel a stronger injunction to availability, for example if they hold a management position. In addition, the maximum amount of daily allowances (€84.90 in 2017) can lead to a loss of income for private sector employees with the highest salaries,” the authors point out. Data correlated by the Diversity and Inclusion Chair of Edhec which indicates that fathers who earn more than 4238 euros are those who have the least recourse to it. Since income is correlated with significant responsibilities and workload, these CSP+ fathers are more reluctant to go through the bottle feeding box. And what about women with equivalent incomes and responsibilities… but that’s not the point (although).
Only 15,550 fathers took parental leave compared to 238,000 mothers.
Now let’s move on to the bad news : parental leave (or administratively, the PrePare for Shared Child-rearing Benefit) and fathers. In 2020, according to the latest opus of the National Early Childhood Observatory published in 2021, only 15,550 fathers (compared to 17,200 a year earlier) stopped working (fully or partially) to take care of their child(ren). kid(s) compared to 238,690 (259,000 mothers in 2019). The proof is there: it is still women who cling to the education of young children, to the detriment therefore (among other things) of their career progression.
Formations: one guy, one girl (executive), same treatment
Published in July 2020, the figures from the Ministry of Labor on gender inequalities in continuing vocational training are based on data collected between 2010 and 2015 (therefore a little old) but still give a good overview. of the situation. If we sum up, we see that the more women are qualified, the more training they take. On the subject, women executives even take equal “course” with men. About seven out of ten women or men have had training in the previous five years.
Boards of directors: parity is really progressing
No quotas, no results.
12 years (yes it will have taken a long time) since the vote of the Coppé-Zimmermann law which imposes 40% of women on the boards of directors, things are finally changing in the boardrooms. Basically, when there are quotas and monitoring, the law is a success. We thus applaud joint councils within the large market capitalizations. 46.2% of female directors for large companies listed on the CAC40 (compared to 10% in 2009) in 2020 and 46.1% for the SBF120 according to the Ethics & Boards study “Where is the mix of governing bodies?” (March 2022). Thanks to these results, France is on the first place of the podium within the European Union. “, welcomes the High Council for Equality. So much for the good students because afterwards, it gets tougher. Even with quotas, if there is no follow-up, things get stuck.
In companies listed below the SBF 120, women are only 34.1% (2018) “Unlisted companies, with 500 employees and more and at least 50 million turnover, would have 23.8 % of women in 2018 in CAs”, notes the High Council for Equality (HCE). And what about “no quota” companies? It’s simple: no quotas, no results. Barely 17% of women on the board of directors listed on Eurogrowth. Who said that quotas were already useless?
Impact of Covid in 2020: women hardest hit
No question of pitting women against men (or vice versa) but the facts are there! “If the crisis is impacting all employees (33% of them consider that the pandemic has negative consequences on their career prospects), it affects women more severely”, notes the Boston Consulting Group in a dedicated study. Only 6 out of 10 women have confidence in their professional future, 15% less than men. “Compared to their male colleagues, they are 13% less to have maintained their professional network since the start of the crisis, and 29% less to have spoken in meetings”, underline the authors.
In terms of working conditions, this is not a panacea either: fewer women than men have an isolated space to work. And they are the ones most often interrupted during the day when they telecommute at home. And then, one cannot not mention the domestic mental load. Admittedly, since the crisis, men have been doing more at home, “which gives hope for a transition towards a ‘new balance’ in the longer term”. “But even though the increase in household chores and time devoted to children affect all employed parents, women still bear the brunt of the burden. This difficult balance between professional and personal life weighs more on health…
