The Gender Intelligence ReportExternal link from the University of St Gallen found that 17% of top management posts are held by women and 23% of middle management positions. Researchers analysed 320,000 employees in 90 Swiss companies.
“If we continue at the current rate, gender parity might become a reality two to three generations from now. Can we really afford to wait until 2078 and lose out on the tens of thousands of highly qualified women that get sieved out?,” the report asks.
Not only are women winning fewer promotions at higher levels of management but they also have a higher turnover rate within firms than male counterparts.
One of the biggest factors of gender discrimination is the decision of women to start families.
“We can see that the proportion of women in the lowest management levels has increased in recent years, but there is simply not much going on at the top,” report leader Ines Hartmann told Swiss public broadcaster SRF.
“First of all, it is assumed that women will have children at some point. This partially prevents employment in higher positions.”
Hartmann urged companies to open up career paths for women by recognizing that “parenting is a normal part of a career – for women as well as men.”
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Swiss employment rate rises in first quarter of 2023
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The number of women and foreign nationals in employment increased particularly strongly, the Federal Statistical Office said on Thursday.
Coercion still an issue in Swiss welfare system, report finds
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The rights of vulnerable people are still sometimes disregarded by the Swiss welfare system, a national research programme has found.
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Viola Amherd has expressed her “deep shock” at the assassination attempt on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Wednesday.
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A man injured half a dozen people with knives, two of them seriously, before being arrested on Wednesday in northern Switzerland.
Switzerland to introduce flight passenger database
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Switzerland plans to introduce a flight passenger database to collect and process personal data in a bid to combat terrorism and serious crime.
Government plans to invest over CHF16bn in Swiss rail network
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The federal government intends to invest CHF16.4 billion ($18.1 billion) in railway infrastructure between 2025 and 2028, CHF2 billion more than for the current period.
Parliament approves quotas for women on company boards
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The Swiss parliament has approved a proposal calling for better representation of women at the top echelons of large publicly-traded companies.
Big firms required to publish gender pay gap in 2021
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Large companies in Switzerland will have to analyse wages of men and women starting in 2020 and make the audited results available to staff in 2021.
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