* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
With the 2014 FIFA World Cup happening in Rio, all eyes are on Brazil. But there’s another reason to focus on Latin America’s largest nation: women’s participation in the private sector is making inroads here.
With the 2014 FIFA World Cup happening in Rio, all eyes are on Brazil. Yet there’s another reason why this is the right time to focus on Latin America’s largest nation. Women’s participation in the private sector is making inroads here.
The cabinet of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first woman president, features a record number of female ministers (10, making up 26% of the cabinet). And attention must be given to the many now-famous women running companies in the nation—such as the president of the Brazilian airline TAM, the president of the Brazilian department store chain Magazine Luiza, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson in Brazil, and the CEO of Boeing in Brazil—just to mention a few. Moreover, this is the first time ever that the country’s “Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Year” Award by Latin Trade went to a woman: Marcela Drehmer of the Odebrecht Group of Brazil.
When the Women’s Forum hosted its third-annual event in São Paulo in late May, it was the first time that its CEO Champions Roundtable (open only to executives) was over-subscribed. The group of more than 30 women and men executives was eager to discuss solutions that offer more opportunities for talent and encourage diversity, while resulting in improved performance for companies.
At the Women’s Forum, Odebrecht, a member of the World Bank Group’s Private Sector Partnership on Women’s Employment (WINvest – Investing in Women) also presented its business case study of “Acreditar” (in English, “Believe”), a skills-development program which has been responsible for significantly increasing the proportion of women in the company´s construction workforce. After its successful implementation in Brazil, which demonstrated positive cost-benefits results for building local capacity, the Acreditar program has since been replicated in 11 other countries, often leading to women’s advancement to operational positions that had been exclusively held by men.
In addition to creating job opportunities, the Acreditar program has enhanced women’s income potential thus furthering local development. Perhaps even more significant, the trained and hired women often have become role models in their communities, encouraging other women to pursue careers–including in the construction industry. Guided by the company’s philosophy, which is based on confidence in people and their unlimited capacity to develop, Odebrecht values and invests in the different talents women and men bring to the organization; this enhances the company’s engagement with clients and partners.
Today, the overall rate of women’s participation in the labor force of Brazil is around 60%, with the country’s public-sector policies and regulations providing a reasonable enabling environment for women’s private sector engagement. Measuring how laws and regulations impact women’s participation in the economy is an important part of understanding the success of countries like Brazil. At the Women´s Forum, the World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law team also presented its findings on how laws impact women entrepreneurs and employees and the implications for the gender gap. While Brazil has done away with almost all of its unequal legislation, about half the countries in the Latin America region still pose restrictions on the types of jobs women can do. Creating incentives for women to work, such as through the public provision of child care or policies enabling greater sharing of parenting responsibilities, constituted most of the region´s changes in the laws over the past two years.
But women’s employment is not just about the quantity of jobs created, but the quality of jobs, including the number of women in management positions and on companies’ boards. To this end, the Brazilian private sector is taking matters in its own hands. Consider, for example, the group Mulheres do Brasil. Under the leadership of Magazine Luiza’s President, Luiza Helena Trajano, Mulheres do Brasil regularly brings together women leaders from the private sector to discuss, explore, and propose best practices that further women’s economic participation. Another innovative group is Aliança. Supported by a professor from Insper University’s Business School and UN Women, the group is composed of eight private sector companies that meet bi-monthly to analyze and compare management metrics and practices.
A milestone took place earlier this year, when 186 Brazilian companies representing all sectors and regions within the country competed for the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Prêmio do Brasil award, a national version of the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles Leadership Awards, sponsored by the hydroelectric company Itaipu Binacional. Participating firms were not only looking to be recognized for their progressive policies and practices, but companies also wanted to better understand how to further promote women on the job and in their communities. This national model of the global WEPs also included an innovative gender self-assessment for companies to complete as part of the application process. Such assessments are important, replicable tools for companies with gender-inclusive goals.
While Brazil still lacks enough wide support to launch a women's soccer league–and thus a mechanism to grow the pipeline of talent for the Brazilian women’s national team—private sector employers are making significant inroads to increase the quantity and quality of jobs for women. Let’s go Brazil! Brasil pra frente!
-- Carmen Niethammer is the Gender Advisor of Odebrecht S.A., a Brazilian conglomerate. She is on secondment from IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, where she served as Acting Head, Strategy & Knowledge Officer of the Women in Business program, charged with creating economic opportunity for women in developing countries.
