A lack of mentors and unequal family responsibilities are two of the obstacles to gender parity in corporate Canada, a survey from American Express Canada and Women of Influence suggests.
About half of the Canadian female entrepreneurs and corporate workers surveyed describe themselves as ambitious career wise, according to the survey, but only a third believe that it’s possible for them to reach the executive suite, and only 28% say they aspire to get there.
The online survey finds a couple of challenges facing women that may explain the gap between the number of women who see themselves as ambitious and those who believe they can reach the highest levels within their companies.
One reason may be the lack of a champion to push women’s careers forward. Only 27% of survey respondents report having a career mentor, and just 8% say they have a sponsor championing their advancement. However, women with a sponsor are almost twice as likely to believe that they can join the executive ranks (61% vs. 32% overall). Female workers that do have mentors or sponsors are significantly more likely to consider themselves as high potential employees, the survey notes.
In addition, survey respondents report having greater responsibilities at home than their male partners. The survey finds that 44% of women have a greater share of household responsibilities, while 31% say that those responsibilities are shared evenly. The survey also finds that women are more likely to make sacrifices in their own career for the sake of a partner’s career.
As well, women may not be prepared to pursue career advancement at any cost, the survey finds, with that 17% of respondents saying they have turned down a promotion. In addition, 72% of respondents define career success as “loving what they do,” versus less than half (45%) who cited “meeting their financial goals,” the survey finds.
“Because every woman’s definition of success is different, organizations should strive to enable and empower their workforce to carve their own individual career path,” says Stephania Varalli, co-CEO of Women of Influence, an educational organization, in a statement.
“Women of course want to show ambition, but they also want to stay true to their core values, like work/life balance,” she adds.
The research comes in the wake of efforts from the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) to encourage greater gender parity in executive offices and corporate boardrooms by imposing disclosure requirements on companies in this area. Back in September 2015, the CSA published a review of companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), which found that almost half of TSX-listed firms (49%) have at least one woman on their board, and 60% have at least one woman in an executive officer position.
See: Long way to go to achieve gender equity
However, the CSA review also found that very few companies have adopted targets for female representation, just 7% have set a board target, and only 2% have target for executives. Among the firms that disclosed the proportion of executives that are women, the overall average was just under 16% of the total executive population.
Following that review, the CSA issued additional guidance designed to beef up companies’ disclosure about their efforts to ensure gender diversity among their senior management and directors.
The survey was conducted online by Nielsen on Oct. 7-21, 2015, with 1,270 female entrepreneurs and female full-time corporate workers in Canada.