{"id":2460,"date":"2016-07-14T14:01:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T13:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2016-07-18T10:44:03","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T09:44:03","slug":"towards-more-gender-inclusive-mobility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2016\/07\/14\/towards-more-gender-inclusive-mobility\/","title":{"rendered":"Towards More Gender-Inclusive Mobility!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.talengo.com\/en\/News\/2016-01-22-08-48-43\/Encumbrances-for-female-expatriation\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2464 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/files\/2016\/07\/Captura-de-pantalla-2016-01-22-a-las-08.43.48-300x197.png\" alt=\"Captura de pantalla 2016-01-22 a la(s) 08.43.48\" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/files\/2016\/07\/Captura-de-pantalla-2016-01-22-a-las-08.43.48-300x197.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/files\/2016\/07\/Captura-de-pantalla-2016-01-22-a-las-08.43.48-500x328.png 500w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/files\/2016\/07\/Captura-de-pantalla-2016-01-22-a-las-08.43.48.png 650w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Diversity is a cornerstone in today\u2019s globalized world. In the current global political arena, diversity seems to be a source of <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2016\/07\/05\/globalization-attacked-as-never-before\/\" target=\"_blank\">social unrest<\/a> and heated debate. Yet, in the <strong>global business<\/strong> world there is a solid <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2015\/11\/13\/diversity-in-global-business-what-to-pay-attention-to\/\" target=\"_blank\">consensus<\/a> on the benefits of and need for diversity. Both practitioners and researchers seem to agree that cultural, racial, age and <strong>gender diversity<\/strong> translate into business value. However, in spite of this knowledge and potential business value, many still struggle with implementing it. One of the consistent diversity gaps relates to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2015\/03\/27\/gender-diversity-in-the-workplace-a-global-matter-with-no-progress\/\" target=\"_blank\">gender inequality<\/a><\/strong>, where females are consistently underrepresented in both, management teams and pools of <strong>international assignees<\/strong>. Specifically in respect to the latter, PWC professionals argue that \u2018the way many organizations currently manage <strong>global mobility<\/strong> is characterized by a significant number of diversity disconnects\u2019. Indeed, several <strong>industry surveys<\/strong> (incl. Brookfield, Cartus, PWC, Santa Fe) indicate that only about 20% of <strong>international assignees<\/strong> are female. After further exploration of the <strong>gender diversity<\/strong> topic in <strong>global mobility<\/strong>, PWC recently released the Moving Women with Purpose <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwc.com\/gx\/en\/diversity-inclusion\/assets\/moving-women-with-purpose.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>. Here I highlight some of the important findings.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Female demand for <strong>global mobility<\/strong> has never been higher<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Currently women constitute a growing talent pool, as they are more educated and enter the job market at higher rates than ever before. According to PWC data, women are not only more visible in the job market in general; they are also active seekers of opportunities for <strong>global mobility<\/strong>. 71% of respondents stated their desire to work outside their home country during their career, and 84% of surveyed women believe that international experience is critical for career prospects. Given such attitudes, the low number of actual female assignees seems even more surprising. Hence, what are the barriers?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018Men are easier to move than women\u2019 is an outdated belief<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The PWC data challenge some of the outdated beliefs that may constitute the barriers for female mobility. For example, the notion that women with children do not want to relocate is our unconscious bias and assumed belief rather than reality. Out of all the women, who identified the will to undertake an <strong>international assignment<\/strong>, 41% are parents, compared with 40% of men. Thus, it is not to say that children are not a barrier, it is rather to realize that it is as big or small of a barrier for both, men and women. Indeed, the data also showed that men and women equally agree (70%) that the best time for an <strong>international assignment<\/strong> is before having children.<\/p>\n<p>Another outdated assumption relates to falling for traditional <strong>gender roles<\/strong> and seeing men as breadwinners, implying that female <strong>expatriation<\/strong> would put their partners\u2019 higher income at risk. In reality, the majority of surveyed women (82%) were in a dual-career couple, and 77% reported to earn equal to or more than their partner or spouse. Hence, dual-career barriers might be a challenge again for both, be it deploying men or women. The PWC data support this assumption, as 20% of women and 19% of men spoke of spouses\u2019 higher salary as a risk for their own mobility.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Women themselves perceive a lack of female role models<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>51% of women do not feel that there are enough female role models of successful <strong>international assignees<\/strong>. Moreover women, together with <strong>global mobility<\/strong> leaders, cite it as the second biggest barrier to their mobility. As the PWC professionals put it, the expression \u2018you can\u2019t be what you can\u2019t see\u2019 could be the right catalyst for more efforts in making female leaders and <strong>international assignees<\/strong> visible. Naturally, an increase in female assignees itself is needed to produce more role models, but companies should also purposefully highlight successful expatriation stories of already existing female expats.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A mobility readiness assessment of the workforce is largely missing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, <strong>global mobility<\/strong> professionals perceive a lack of understanding of the mobility readiness of their workforce as the number one barrier to gender inclusive mobility. Indeed, a lack of such overview makes the previously discussed, and quite possibly outdated, assumptions even more powerful. Without any knowledge of who is willing and ready to go overseas, <strong>global mobility<\/strong> leaders and managers may rather propose such opportunities to potential \u2018stereotypical expats\u2019, hence men. As per the report data, only 25% of <strong>global mobility<\/strong> professionals have such a roster of the mobile ready population. On a positive note, this is a process shortcoming, which can be relatively easy to correct by implementing corresponding evaluations within employee development practices.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, it seems that <strong>global mobility<\/strong> is at a point where the awareness of <strong>gender inequality<\/strong> is already quite high, yet required action is strongly lagging. Indeed, only 22% of the surveyed <strong>global mobility<\/strong> professionals indicated that they are \u2018actively trying to increase our female international mobile pipeline\u2019. It is probably hard to argue that the <strong>gender diversity<\/strong> issue, with its long lasting gaps, is a matter that can\u2019t be improved by itself, following the logic of \u2018time heals everything\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diversity is a cornerstone in today\u2019s globalized world. In the current global political arena, diversity seems to be a source of social unrest and heated debate. Yet, in the global business world there is a solid consensus on the benefits of and need for diversity. Both practitioners and researchers seem to agree that cultural, racial, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[17550,96597,44828,26739,44741,96598,89572,82135],"class_list":["post-2460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-expatriation","tag-female-underrepresentation","tag-gender-diversity","tag-global-business","tag-global-mobility","tag-global-mobility-leaders","tag-international-assignees","tag-international-assignments","megacategoria-mc-leadership-and-people-management"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2466,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions\/2466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}