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This report analyses funding opportunities for employees at critical career moments (e.g. re-entry positions) considering national regulations and best pracitices in the 8 partner insitutions of Baltic Gender. 

The new millennium provides an occasion to celebrate the remarkable progress made by women. That women now hold seats on corporate boards, run major companies, and are regularly featured on the covers of business magazines as prominent leaders and power brokers would have been unimaginable even a half century ago.

But the truth is, women at the highest levels of business are still rare. They comprise only 10% of senior managers in Fortune 500 companies; less than 4% of the uppermost ranks of CEO, president, executive vice president, and COO; and less than 3% of top corporate earners.1 Statistics also suggest that as women approach the top of the corporate ladder, many jump off, frustrated or disillusioned with the business world. Clearly, there have been gains, but as we enter the year 2000, the glass ceiling remains. What will it take to finally shatter it?

Authors: Debra Meyerson and Joyce K. Fletcher

The need to redress persistent gender inequality in senior and decision-making positions in science through structural measures is increasingly recognized both in academic literature and policy-making. Based on the experience of a Danish university implementing a structural gender equality action plan, we present a dynamic framework to activate structural change and argue that for such interventions to be effective, it is necessary that they acknowledge and operationalize the notion of complexity as their frame of reference. The notion of complexity proposes a nonlinear relationship between inputs and outputs of policy measures, where impact depends on the interaction of a multitude of variables strongly related to context. Following this approach, the framework tested and discussed herein is characterized by a holistic view of structural change, encompassing multiple targets and areas of intervention, a multidimensional notion of power and a strong focus on local change dynamics, that is, activation processes, agency mobilization, structural resistances, and impact-producing factors.

Authors: Evanthia Kalpazidou Schmidt and Marina Cacace

This article examines whether progress in women’s access to decision-making positions is best achieved through increased levels of development or targeted actions. Drawing on European data for the period 2006–2018, the article examines the association between how gender equal a country is and legislated measures such as board quotas with women’s representation on boards. The analysis then explores how this can be nuanced by differentiating between hard sanctions, soft sanctions and codes of governance. It shows that board quotas cannot be relied upon as instruments of progress independently of a contextual environment that is more gender equal. Furthermore, board quotas with hard sanctions work best, followed by codes of governance, particularly when associated with higher gender equality. However, board quotas with soft sanctions are associated with results that are only marginally better than not having any measure in place. The article concludes that for further and faster progress to be made, introducing legislated board quotas shows great potential, though only in combination with striving for a gender equal society and using hard sanctions. The results call for organizations not to lose focus on ‘rights’ at the expense of the more palatable ‘business case’ for board quotas when striving for equality on corporate boards.

Authors: Anne Laure Humbert, Elisabeth K Kelan, Kate Clayton-Hathway