Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor about the gender-gap in the workforce

Following the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report, I found this very interesting interview with professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter from Harvard Business School (recorded by Harvard Business Review), who comments on the gender gap and explains why women’s compensation and advancement to the highest ranks have failed to keep pace with their impressive inroads into the workforce.

Professor Kanter pointed on the essential differences in the type of jobs performed by men and women:

‘It is still hard to find a way to exactly compare men and women because women, even at the high levels are still often, disproportionally found in people-oriented jobs and men are more often found in the high-risks jobs, where they have to make pivotal decisions. Ad those jobs are more likely paid more, because whenever there is a high degree of uncertainty, then you wanna pay more for the judgment of the people you trust’.

And, since the culture where women are regarded as the most family-oriented ready to sacrifice their career for the family sake, any radical change of the gender-gap situation will be impossible to achieve.

‘Until we have a generation of men who are just as family oriented, I think we won’t get as much change as we would like’.

See and hear the full interview below. Read Prof. Kanter’s blog on Harvard Business Review.