沪江论坛社区--听听【The Economist 】NO.65西班牙政府着力改善女性就业 (参与即奖励100hy)

European boards
Jobs for the girls
Spain's government wants firms to appoint more female directors
THE sight of Spain's heavily pregnant defence minister inspecting the troops in early April seemed to herald a new era of opportunity for Spanish women. Spain is the first European country ever to produce a government with more female than male ministers. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the ___1__, has appointed nine women and eight men to his new cabinet, including Carme Chacon, Spain's first female defence minister.

Despite their sudden ascendancy in politics, however, women are still practically absent from the upper ranks of business. Spanish women make up just 4.1% of _____2____, according to a study by the European Professional Women's Network, an lobby group, and Egon Zehnder, a recruiting agency, against an 11% average in Europe.

One reason is that fewer women make it into the workforce than in other European countries, with the exception of Italy. ________3________, according to a study by Kevin Daly at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. Reconciling family life with work, a struggle anywhere, seems to be harder in Spain than in other countries. Spanish women spend far more time on domestic chores, including childcare, than men. The length of the working day, which is extended into the evening thanks to long lunch breaks, does not help. It is practically impossible to __4___ family and work if you get home at 9pm or 10pm, says Ruth Mateos de Cabo, one of the authors of an academic paper entitled “Discrimination on Spanish Boards of Directors”.

Ms Mateos and her co-authors analysed the boards of Spain's top 1,000 companies in a bid to understand why women are so scarce. They found that Spanish boardrooms are clubby, and that diversity is seen as a hindrance, not a strength.

The government has passed a law that aims to change things by requiring firms to raise the share of women on boards to 40% by 2015. Norway already has such a quota, but the results have been mixed: because of a shortage of eligible women, some of the most qualified have collected as many as 35 directorships.

In Spain the target is mainly symbolic, since companies will not face financial penalties if they do not meet it, unlike their Norwegian ____5____, although the government may take their performance into account when awarding public contracts. It may be better to help women gain enough experience to be good candidates for directorships to begin with. Encouraging more reasonable hours would be a start. Spanish boards may also consider head-hunting in fields where women are better represented, such as academia.

There are reasons for ___6__. A bigger share of women in their 20s are joining the workforce in Spain than in America. Eva Castillo, a banker and board-member of Telefónica, a telecoms firm, believes it is only a matter of time before women's lot at Spanish firms improves: “It's changing naturally, it's a generational thing.”

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