By Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter LOCAL RESEARCHERS are worried about the continuing trend which points to a massive growth in the number of women at various levels of employment with fewer men keeping pace.
In what she described as a social imbalance, Jamaica Employers Federation's (JEF) Executive Director Jacqueline Lloyd, said the situation was cause for concern.
IMBALANCE
"We ought not to be happy that there is going to be another imbalance. Men and women were created to be different in some respects, with different responsibilities. When we reverse that it makes for a lot of social dislocation in the country," she said. "On the national level we need to ensure that our men and boys play their part and add value to society."
Mrs. Lloyd explained that studies showed that women accounted for 75 per cent of the managers in specific sectors. These included information technology, human resource management, accounting, and sales and marketing. In addition, another executive pointed to the trend of over 70 per cent of university graduates being women and said in the next few years Jamaican boardrooms would be made up entirely of women.
The JEF executive also pointed to shifts in traditional careers like medicine and law with women now accounting for the same percentage (50/50) as men.
But the Bureau of Women's Affairs head Dr. Glenda Simms has dismissed the idea of social disturbance as a result of a swell in women's presence in the
workforce.
"We're looking at the wrong issues if we're only counting figures. We need to see where the power really lies. We certainly don't believe that women are advancing at the expense of men. Are the women the ones who are really making the decisions or having real power? Women are merely trying to survive in a bad system. The question instead is how to help our boys and girls to develop to their full potential," she said.
"If meritocracy is the way we go, then it will be the best people who get the jobs in spite of gender or race."
ADVANTAGE
Former mayor of Spanish Town and general secretary of the PNP Women's Movement, Jennifer Edwards, agreed with Dr. Simms on the issue of women still not having the advantage in the workforce.
"Despite the facade of women's advancement...structural and attitudinal changes necessary for real empowerment of women within the society have occurred at snail's pace," she said.
Mrs. Edwards also outlined figures in a document highlighting the challenges to a political career for women representatives.
"There are 3,972 Justices of the Peace in Jamaica, 2,861 of them are men. All the chairmen of public companies in Jamaica are men, 90 per cent of the members of public companies are men, 97 per cent of the managing directors of public companies are men, 72 per cent of the board members of statutory bodies are men, 11 of 14 general secretaries in trade unions are men, 223 of the 294 members of the NEC of the PNP are men, 53 of the 60 parliamentarians are men, and 173 of the 227 parish councillors are men.
"It has taken Jamaica 40 years to move from none (women parliamentarians) to eight. If we only move at the same pace, in 120 years time, more than half the parliamentarians will be women."
Mrs. Lloyd conceded too that, despite the seeming strides, women were still far from breaking the 'glass ceiling'. "That won't happen. Certainly we are going to find more women in the boardrooms and management positions ...but it hasn't come about through maturity in thinking but simply their greater number."
