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American Morning

Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Aired July 10, 2001 - 09:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: As those graphics show you, women here in the U.S. are making some progress in breaking through the glass ceiling but there still is a lot more room for improvement. To look at that we have with us today Linda Wirth. She is with the International Labor Organization Bureau for Gender Equality. Linda, good morning. Good to see you.

LINDA WIRTH, INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: You could spin those numbers a number of ways. You could say oh, look at American women, they're doing twice as well as they were just a few years ago in getting through top management positions, but still only five percent, just about five percent of those top management positions going to women, and that certainly is not reflective of women in the workplace.

WIRTH: Yes, definitely. The U.S. seems to be ahead of other countries but we would say that this is a meager proportion of those top executive jobs that are going to women. And if you look around the world you'll find similar figures and, for example, only eight countries have head of states, trade union leadership it's the same, only one percent are occupied by women.

KAGAN: Your study did an interesting thing. You just didn't look at the glass ceiling, you said it starts earlier than that, with what you call glass walls, and that's women not going into the right positions early that would lead to top leadership positions.

WIRTH: Yes, that's right. We note our research in the international labor office shows that women are moving into professional and managerial jobs all over the world but they're not getting through to the top jobs. And why is that? It's because they're not in what we call the line management positions. They're not in profit and loss revenue generation work. They're not in product development. They're not in research. They're not in manufacturing and production type jobs of management. And we find women that are more in financial managers, communications, personnel and even marketing. So we call that glass walls. So they're not, their career pacts are, in fact, different from those of men.

KAGAN: And how much of this, though, Linda, is a case of women turning it around and they decide to chuck the corporate environment and say you know what, the way this is structured, this doesn't work for me and family. So women actually leave the corporate environment before they would try to get through the glass ceiling and start their own businesses?

WIRTH: Well, I think it's a little bit of chicken and egg because if women are encouraged more, you know, we say that mentoring, networking and feeling that they can make it also helps. But we also notice that some women do leave the corporation and start their own businesses. In the United States, there's about 38 percent of all businesses are owned and run by women, and we find similar figures in Australia, Finland, Canada.

KAGAN: And is that where you see the most hope, in those businesses, for women getting ahead?

WIRTH: Well, definitely I think supporting women in business is important in terms of their income and having business experience.

KAGAN: Linda Wirth, thanks for helping us look and understand some interesting new numbers. Good to have you with us.

WIRTH: Thank you.

KAGAN: If you'd like more information on this, you can check out on the Web, Equality At Work is a free CD-ROM. It's available from the International Labor Organization. That's who Linda Wirth is associated with. It provides information on gender equality laws and policies. Find out what your rights are. You can also log onto their Web site. The address there: ilo.org.

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