Adding a gender dimension to economic decision-making.

Women hold a meagre 1 per cent of executive positions in the 1,000 largest corporations based outside the United States. The proportion is higher, at 8 per cent, in the 1,000 largest corporations in the United States, but only a handful of women hold the top-most positions, according to a recent study by the UN Secretariat Division for the Advancement of Women.

The same is true for the web of powerful global and regional multi-lateral institutions, where "women have been virtually excluded from key decision-making positions and from negotiating roles", as well as national trade policy, where the proportion of women is "insignificant", asserts Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in a 1994 report (A/49/349).

The result: the proportion of women in economic decision-making is not only "very low", states the report, but also "a gender dimension has been absent from macroeconomic policies and decisions regarding resource distribution, wealth creation and exchange".

The United Nations is no exception. As of 30 June 1994, the overall percentage of women in Secretariat posts subject to geographical distribution was just 32.6 per cent, while et the highest professional levels--D-1 and above--the percentage hovered at around 15 per cent, a full 10 per cent short of General Assembly targets.

"As we look back over time, it becomes clear that we have failed to live up to the promise of the Charter", Mr. Boutros-Ghali stated on 14 March, in a message to a conference on women and the UN, organized by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. "Recruitment and promotion of women in the United Nations have lagged dismally behind what they were supposed to be."

One way forward is to smash the apparent "glass ceiling" restricting women's upward mobility by attacking the gender bias embedded in employment training and promotion rules, administrative regulations and performance evaluation, all of which are formulated to provide advantages to men both as employers and employees, and are unfavourable to women and their needs, according to the Secretary-General's report.

The corporate world must become more "women-friendly", putting an end to the pervasive "male corporate culture" which propagates sexual harassment, denial of career development opportunities for women, and the under- or non-valuation of women's qualifications and skills.

Finally, it is critical that women become better represented in places where male privileges tend to become institutionalized--in the boardrooms, cabinets, trade union headquarters and the executive suites of transnational organizations.

"This will allow them to influence the direction of the huge resources controlled by large private entities and have a voice in shaping our world's values", concluded participants at the UN Expert Group Meeting on Women in Economic Decision-Making (New York, 7-11 November 1994).

"Ultimately, it is recognized that society is the loser if the talents of women are under-utilized as a result of discrimination", asserts the Secretary-General in another report (E/CN.6/1995/3/Add 5).

RELATED ARTICLE: Ending the statistics gap: Measuring women's unpaid work

It is still before sunrise, about 6:30 a.m., when the researcher arrives at the family's doorstep. For the next hour, as unobtrusively as possible, she records what each household member is doing. Each separate activity is timed and all interactions within the household recorded: a mother fixing meals or helping a child get dressed, for instance.

The researcher is taking the first painstaking steps in the process of gathering gender statistics. The technique is an old one, a time-use study. The results will be new: when compiled, the data will capture many activities not formally recorded before.

Statistics, though sometimes mind-numbing, are the engines that drive the decision-making process. But some very important statistics, such as gross domestic product (GDP). tend to omit as much as they include.

In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, women are estimated to be responsible for more than 80 per cent of food production for home consumption and over half of agricultural production. Official GDP figures for the region, however, generally count only the produce actually brought to market or export--the cash crops grown largely by men.

The statistical gap thus goes to the heart of the gender bias in economic and social policy decision-making. The challenge for statisticians is to develop and implement new concepts and methods of collecting data that will reflect reality and the situations of both women and men.

The ultimate goal: the heretofore invisible contributions of women will become accepted, evaluated and integrated into the world's economies.