LAST Thursday's CPA Singapore Powwow - organised by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore (ICPAS) - saw a strong turnout from women executives working in the financial sector, though the men didn't shy away either.
In all, 150 participants gathered to hear the panel of two men and two women, appropriately gender balanced, discuss the forum's topic: 'The Shifting Power Balance - Is Gender The Issue?'
Why are there fewer women at the top?
Moderator, news presenter Melissa Hyak, kicked off the discussion with stark numbers from ICPAS. While 64 per cent of ICPAS' membership is female, only 27 per cent of those at the top are women. Of the partners of the Big Four and mid-tier accounting firms, only 25 per cent are women.
Lim Hwee Hua, who became Singapore's first woman Cabinet minister earlier this year, thought it necessary to 'delve deeper into the statistics'.
'This could be a question of timing,' she said. 'I think leadership positions would have to evolve with the base that you're talking about. So, hypothetically, if the numbers of women in accounting have only recently begun to grow, then it's not surprising that there could be a lag. You need time to let the greater women base grow and have leaders surface and rise to positions at the top.'
Declan O'Sullivan, a director at Kerry Consulting, agreed that the time-lag may mean a higher proportion of women in leadership in one or two decades' time.
Mr O'Sullivan's own theory was that there is a 'chicken and egg' effect. 'At the board level, there's a lot of networking required, and a lot of that goes on in something of a male domain - golf clubs, yacht clubs. To break into that circle, it requires a woman who is very self-confident, somebody who is better than the average of that group,' he said.
But he was hopeful, noting that this is not so different from minorities breaking into majority groups in other contexts, and that America now has its first black president. 'Things are progressing. Singapore has some particular advantages. There is still a pretty decent prevalence of extended families, and access to domestic workers is enormously helpful, coming from the West where only the elite have access to home help on a 24 hour basis,' he said.
However, tempering that optimism somewhat, Ms Hyak shared that according to the World Economic Forum, Singapore has fallen in world rankings based on the Gender Gap Index. The index measures the size of the gender gap in four areas of inequality between men and women - economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival. From 65th place in 2006, Singapore fell to 77th place in 2007 and 84th place last year.
But the panellists pointed out that inequality need not necessarily point to rising discrimination as a host of factors could pull the numbers either way.
Gerard Ee said: 'Sometimes we forget that modern-day Singapore only existed since 1965 and it took these other countries many more decades to reach where they are.'
Specific to the issue of fewer high-heels stepping up the corporate ladder's top rungs, Mr Ee, who is vice-president of ICPAS, shared that as someone in the gruelling accounting profession, he has seen many women 'leave the field' for jobs with more regular hours so as to care for their families.
'So basically the problem is they don't stay long enough to be in the selection process for the higher posts,' he said.
Mrs Lim pointed out that there are many factors that can influence wage gaps; for instance, women choosing to take time off work. 'Or, there are just certain arenas where, whether by design or choice, participation tends to be lower, and which means women are less likely to advance or progress.'
Is there gender discrimination in today's workplace?
Given that numbers do not tell the whole story then, did the panel think gender discrimination exists in today's corporate world?
Saw Phaik Hwa, the woman in the driver's seat at SMRT Corp, said that there was, though that did not stop her, and things have changed much since.
Sharing her experiences from the 1970s when she was a young graduate applying to be a police inspector ('males only' was not in the ad but her application was rejected because they did not take females), Ms Saw said she has also been passed over for promotion in the course of her career because of her gender. 'I had to prove myself not only to be as good as the men to get ahead, you had to be twice as good, if not three times as good.'
It was not so much that management did not like her, she explained, but that they had assumptions - that she would not stay for long, or that she would be unwilling to travel as much, for instance. 'But, each time you get promoted, then you're breaking down the barriers of people's perceptions.'
Today, Ms Saw thinks that things are vastly different, as 'people are a lot more enlightened, educated, and the equal opportunities and access to education are far greater than before'.
Mrs Lim agreed: 'I think if at all there's any form of discrimination, it's probably very subtle, probably in the minds of people who have grown up with certain mindsets about how leadership should be like.'
Mr O'Sullivan, too, added that he has not observed gender discrimination when conducting recruitment of banking, financial and human resource personnel for companies.
In fact, Mrs Lim cautioned: 'We have to be very careful distinguishing between real discrimination and what might actually just be an evaluation of performance on a strictly non-gender basis.'
The flip-side of the issue - that women could be making a deliberate choice to leave the workforce due to different priorities - was raised. Ms Hyak brought up for discussion a study revealing that over a third of high-achieving women took time out of their career, and that over 90 per cent of these wanted to return to work. But only 74 per cent managed to rejoin the workforce, and only 40 per cent went back to full-time jobs.
What can companies do to encourage women to remain in the workplace?
As women talent could be a key labour market solution to the challenges of an ageing workforce, falling birth rates and skill shortages, Mr Ee thought that more could be done to encourage women to return to the workforce. 'We could have more and better childcare facilities, which are especially important as families get smaller and young couples are staying on their own now.'
A member of the audience also suggested setting up a 'nanny academy' to get domestic helpers certified to a higher standard than the present, especially for childcare.
Mrs Lim acknowledged the difficulty women face, saying: 'The reality is that the marketplace is moving a whole lot faster than it's ever been before. The opportunity cost for women who take time off work is very high, and it is more difficult to convince companies to take you back.'
On the issue of maternity leave, she said: 'In Singapore, there is this requirement that men go for re-service as well, and 40 days at a stretch, so what I can't understand is why companies cope with that and not with maternity leave.' She added: 'Especially if these are good contributors, I think it's the company's loss not to make arrangements for staff to go on maternity leave with peace of mind and not feel guilty about it.'
Noting that such arrangements would be more of a challenge for SMEs, which lack the scale of bigger companies, she suggested that 'some solution may have to be found on an aggregate basis'.
Ms Saw shared that her company built lactating rooms for mothers because she believes: 'As a company if you want to embrace women, keep women in the job and not lose them, you must remove the barriers so that they can carry on and be a responsible mother and wife too.'
Agreeing, Mrs Lim added: 'We want to minimise a situation where she's forced to strike a different balance, because the organisation HR policies are just not as family friendly, makes it difficult for her to continue working.'
However, Mr O'Sullivan raised the fact that although most corporations are 'cognisant of their relationship with society', and thus 'reasonably family friendly', many are also listed companies which face equities analysts every three months. 'So there's inherent tension there between anything that takes a staff member's eye off the ball, and success as defined by an equities market,' he said.
Is legislation the way forward?
Although companies can take action to encourage female employees to keep working, Ms Saw said that legislation was not the solution. 'If you talk about discrimination, prejudice, there's no end to prejudice - against women, colour, short or tall, fat or skinny. What is important is that we continue to educate people, and continue to move towards removing prejudice. Unless the existing legislation itself is unfair, I don't see a need to create new legislation.'
Mrs Lim cautioned that legislation could backfire if employers chose to employ men over women because the law makes it too onerous to employ a lady. 'We have to make sure that by trying to protect women, we do not unwittingly disadvantage women.'
Both women panellists were also in agreement in response to a question from the floor on quotas and targets set to ensure female representation.
Quotas to force women into top positions, such as on boards of directors, 'can be self-defeating', Mrs Lim said. Instead, flexible targets set to encourage diversity send a positive signal and are a better way to highlight the issue of low female representation at the top.
Mr O'Sullivan also pointed out that Singapore's economic context differs greatly from Norway, which has set a quota for women representation on company boards. 'I don't believe Singapore can afford very grand gestures,' he said. 'Its security and growth is about maintaining relationships with foreign direct investors. And, I think that FDI and exposure to foreign cultures is in itself promoting the cause of gender equality.'
The parting take-away thought before lunch came from Mrs Lim: Is there actually a shifting power balance?
Mrs Lim said: 'The shift in power speaks of taking from someone to give to another person. And this sounds like you're taking from the man to give to the woman, which I really think is quite far from the truth.'
Through the decades, she thinks, the underlying tenet in leadership selection has always been that the best person leads.
'As an economy, as a society, we have to continue to embrace this philosophy, that you always let the best persons lead. And if the best persons are women, because more women are now being educated and given more opportunities economically, then that's what it is,' she said.
