In early January, the Executive Leadership Council® and Harris Interactive®  polled senior corporate executives about the challenges facing and opportunities available to Black women in executive roles at major U.S. corporations.  According to the poll, senior executives identify the top 3 challenges facing Black professional women as:

• “Weaker or less strategic networks available (31%)
• Inaccurate perceptions of African-American women’s capabilities (24%), and
• Work/life balance demands (23%)”

These findings dovetail with ELC’s 2008 research, Black Women Executives Research Initiative, which focused on challenges and critical success factors for executive-level Black women.  This is really important research, especially considering the lack of available data on professional African-American women.

You can read the executive summary of the research here, and of the poll here.

For the business-minded, another milestone appears even earlier: among the working age population, multicultural people are anticipated to be the majority in 2039!

Of course these dates seem like a long way off, but it is essential that companies have strategies in place to handle this already-occurring demographic shift. Many of our nation’s largest companies do not yet have a meaningful diversity strategy. I think it is important that diversity be understood within the context of human capital strategy. As companies continue to see major waves of retirement and an increasingly multicultural workforce, diversity strategies may prove to be an important source of talent.

Read the Census press release here.

Interesting, huh? This adds yet another lens to the multicultural women’s discussion.

To find out, I went to the recent statistics released by the Women’s Data Center of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Here’s what I found:

Participation Rates
African-American women have the highest participation in the labor force at 63.1%. This rate is 4-6% higher than any other group of women. White women and Native American women participate in the labor force at around 58% (58.8% and 58.2%, respectively), followed by Asian-American (57.5%) and Hispanic/Latinas (56.6%).

I am now reminded of the welfare queen stereotype, generally used against African-American and Latinas/Hispanic women. Oh, right, we can see from these statistics that the women in these groups participate in the labor force at almost an equal rate (Latinas) or a greater rate (African-Americans) than White women. So much for stereotypes.

Mind the Gap!
And there are more nuggets of information: in order to compare the rates at which men and women in these groups are working, the gap (or difference) in their labor participation rates was measured:

African-Americans – 5.6% difference between the men and women’s participation rates. This is the smallest gap across all ethnic groups.

Asian-Americans – 15.8% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Caucasian/Whites – 13.7% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Latinos/Hispanics – 22.7% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Native Americans – 10.6% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

These numbers remind us that large percentages of multicultural women are participating in the labor force, and underscore the need for programs and initiatives related to their professional development and career advancement.

JFC

One recent study was released in mid-May by Catalyst on Women of Color in Accounting. This research is is part of their Women of Color in Professional Services series and was sponsored by Ernst & Young (lead sponsor), Deloitte & Touche LLP, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (contributing sponsors). Katherine Giscombe, who has been at the helm of quite a bit of Catalyst research on women of color led this project.

The study found that the experiences of women of color overlapped with men of color and with their Caucasian female counterparts, but that they ultimately faced barriers similar to those groups but to a greater degree. Below is a list of significant challenges faced by women of color in accounting:

• challenges navigating a client based environment
• lack of similar role models
• exclusion from networks
• lack of high-visibility assignments and business development opportunities

I am looking forward to reading this report and think it’s great that Catalyst has continued this line of research.

For more information, read the press release or the full report.

JFC

But the studies on the advancement of women (especially women of color) in corporate america are not showing the sort of improvement that ought to follow all of these diversity programs and initiatives. Professors at Tuck (Dartmouth) and Loyola Chicago recently released a study entitled “The Pipeline to the Top: Women and Men in the Top Executive Ranks of U.S. Corporations”. The results are published in the Academy of Management Perspectives November 2006 issue.

You can read a short blurb on the study here (from U.S. News & World Report).

“Tired of Choosing”: Working with the Simultaneity of Race, Gender, and Class in Organizations.

Read the article: http://www.simmons.edu/som/docs/centers/insights_24.pdf

For more information on the CGO, click here.

“Blending In” – having a high number of colleagues from work, or a high number of white men in one’s network; or

“Sticking Together” – having a low number of colleagues from work, and a high number of people who share the same race/ethnicity/gender in one’s network.

A fascinating study of how our employment associations impact the careers of women of color. You can view the executive summary or the full report here:

http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/titles/title.php?page=woc_connections_06

Out of the 266 companies (Fortune 500) that confirmed the ethnic makeup of their boards, women of color held approximately 3.4% of board seats.

Statisticienne Breakdown
White men – 73.1% = 194 seats
White women – 13.1% = 35 seats
Black men – 6.8% = 18 seats
Latinos – 2.4% = 6 seats
Black women – 2.3% = 6 seats
Asian men & Latinas – 0.8% = 2 seats each group (4 seats total)
Asian women & Other men of color – 0.3% = 1 seat
Native American men – 0.1% = 1 seat
Native American women – 0.0% = 0 seats
Other women of color – 0.0% = 0 seats

Women of color vs. Men of color
Men of color = 10.4% = 28 seats
Women of color = 3.4% = 9 seats

Men occupy 76% of the 37 seats held by people of color.

If you know of programs or initiatives to get women of color on boards, send them here.