The participation of women in the directories of the companies with the highest turnover in Argentina grew from 11.71% in 2019 to 13.7% in 2021, the Industrial Union of the Province of Buenos Aires (UIPBA) reported this Friday based on to a study that the consulting firm KPMG published at the end of 2021, through the survey of data from public and private documents.
According to the UIPBA, the presence of women in management positions in the business sector throughout the country is 34% in executive roles39% in administration heads and 23% in production heads.
The proportion registers higher levels of parity within the scope of the UIPBA itself, where 48% of the authorities of the technical departments are women, an achievement that represents a triumph in the search for equality that this entity faced.
“Although there is still a long way to go, female participation continues to expand in the UIPBA, where this representation reaches 16% in the Executive Committee, while it occupies 23% in the Board of Directors”, highlighted the Buenos Aires Industrial Union in a release.
“The women we choose to lead find ourselves with an even greater challenge, to overcome the invisible obstacles, those cultural biases that run through our belief system and that of our organizations”Irini Wentinck, member of the UIPBA Board of Directors
The scenario is complex and most of the challenges still remain to be faced to close the gender gap, he added, indicating that the latest measurements indicate that in Buenos Aires the activity rate of women was 48.6% during the first quarter of 2020, according to a report presented in February 2021 by the Ministry of Finance of the province of Buenos Aires.
In contrast, the male reached 68.2%, that is to say that a gap of 19.7 percentage points regarding the female activity rate, but the activation in March 2020 of the Social, Preventive and Compulsory Isolation (ASPO) caused a freezing effect on these records.
Meanwhile, for the same period, the employment rate for women was 42.8%, while that for men was 60.1%. In this sense, the gap was set at 17.3 percentage points.
Regarding the industrial activity, barely 10% of employed women carry out tasks within this area.
In this sense, Irini Wentinck, member of the Board of Directors of the UIPBA and president of the Gender and Diversity Commission of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA), stated that running a company in Argentina today “is not an easy task ”.
Wentinck explained: “The women we choose to lead are faced with an even greater challenge, to overcome the invisible obstacles, those cultural biases that run through our belief system and that of our organizations. This is why the creation of networks of women is so important. women, mentoring spaces with women and men who are already in leadership positions, and programs that accompany the integration of the gender perspective in organizations”.
Regarding the most recent data record, which shows a slight growth in terms of reducing the gender gap, the businesswoman maintains that “An increase in female participation in company leadership, however small, should be seen as progress.”
The president of SPI Astilleros and titular member of the UIPBA, Sandra Cipolla, agreed with Wentinck, who pointed out that “we have made a lot of progress, albeit slow. Structural changes in society are like that; they need commitment and take a long time. Little by little We will gradually break that glass ceiling that makes it difficult for many women to climb to high positions.”
Facing the next challenges, Cipolla warned that “there are issues to be resolved to consolidate the presence of women in the industry” and stressed the need to “generate actions that motivate change and that the search for equality and justice is not a battle, but a meeting place to modify the present and future”.
