Adopting policies and enforceable measures to promote gender equality at all levels of public administration, especially in leadership positions, has been a challenge for governments. Retention and promotion of women in senior management levels in civil service have been elusive for almost every country in the world. Globally, women average nearly half of all public administration employees but hold less than one-third of decision-making positions. Many countries have taken steps to advance gender equality in public administration through gender quotas – rules that guarantee women (and sometimes men) a minimum share of candidates or elected positions. Yet, we know very little about these measures and their effects in public administration. This is the first global study of gender quotas in public administration worldwide. In this project, we first develop a scheme for classifying gender quotas amidst the broader set of Temporary Special Measures (TSMs), a class of instruments designed to accelerate progress towards gender equality in public administration leadership. TSMs include, for example, preferential treatment, targeted recruitment, and numerical targets. We then draw from a new dataset on gender quotas in public administration worldwide to classify gender quotas by their scope and features, including mechanisms for accountability. We also begin to explore the relationship between the use of gender quotas and women's representation in decision-making positions in public administration. Ultimately, this study will contribute to our understanding of the pathways towards greater gender equality in decision-making positions in public administration around the world.

Pakistan has seen a surge in the cases of violence against women in the last couple of years. July 2021 especially saw such cases which gained huge prominence due to the major outcry on social media and other mediums. Atleast four such cases have been highlighted where women have actually died due to the violence they encountered at home or otherwise. Over 63,367 cases of gender-based crimes were reported, 3,987 women were killed and more than 10,500 women became victims of sexual violence (The Nation, October 2022) .These cases have highlighted the lack of legal structures and policies that help protect women. Women in Pakistan make up almost half of the population (49 percent), yet they have a small share of senior, executive, or legislative roles – only 4.5 percent, one of the lowest in the world. Only two in every 10 Pakistani women participate in the labor force, again one of the lowest rates in the region. Even in terms of civic participation, women’s political engagement is limited; during the 2018 elections, of the 46 million women that were registered to vote, only 40 percent voted. It is well established that women in Pakistan do not make up significant numbers, whether as voters, candidates, or members of political parties. To address this, Pakistan’s Constitution has reserved quotas for women: 17 percent of the seats in both the National Assembly and the Senate.

The current makeup of Pakistan’s parliament is only 21 percent female. In the National Assembly, which consists of 342 members, female representation is only around 3 percent if reserved seats are excluded. There are 60 seats reserved for women. These numbers are emblematic of a male-dominated political culture (Tanoli, 2022). Keeping these circumstances in perspective it is important to ensure women representation at different policy and decision making levels. Inclusion at street level bureaucracy, judiciary, law enforcement and otherwise can lead to improvement in women condition. The present study intends to explore the effect of gendered representation using an experimental design to help establish its impact on perceived performance. It is imperative to understand that with an increase of women representation in politics and parliaments; why there has been an alarming increase in incidents of violence against women. The current trend emphasizes that not only representation but inclusion at the decision making level is necessary to make our societies just, fair and equitable. Is the representation of women in the public spheres actually facing a backlash or is their representation a token/symbolic lacking inclusion at the necessary levels to be impactful.

The research for the paper is based on a larger research project, called Realising Girls’ and Women’s Inclusion, Representation and Empowerment (RE-WIRING) (EC Project No. 101094497). This is a European Commission funded Horizon project that involves researchers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Spain and the United Kingdom. RE-WIRING acknowledges that in recent decades laws and public policies have been enacted to promote gender equality, but data across the globe reveal the persistence of gender inequality and insufficient efforts to bring about real change in practice (see for example the UN Gender Inequality Index).

The focus of RE-WIRING is to fundamentally rethink and rewire existing institutional approaches and systems in order to achieve greater gender equality. It aims at contributing to effective change, which can only be brought about by a re-design of existing legal, policy and institutional approaches more widely, to secure intrinsic change and behaviour towards transformative equality in all domains of society. This regards not only public policy making, implementation, monitoring and enforcement systems of equality laws and policies as such, but also the policies and actions of all societal stakeholders involved. RE-WIRING aims to prevent and reverse inequalities and promote girls’ and women’s inclusion, representation and empowerment, to better understand the root causes of gendered power hierarchies and gender gaps across political, social, economic and cultural spheres. RE-WIRING contributes practical, sustainable and structural change through evidence-based research to help improve understandings of gender stereotyping and multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantages. Thus, RE-WIRING is concerned with ‘fixing’ organisations, and not ‘fixing’ women.

This paper presents the results of a study into better practices in addressing women’s representation in employment. Women remain underrepresented in certain sectors of the economy (horizontal occupational gender segregation), and in managerial and leadership positions (vertical occupational gender segregation) (Johnston, 2019). The research involved a systematic review of existing research on better practices in gender representation and gender equality in employment. The focus of the research was in the employment sectors of healthcare, finance, and sustainability and innovation, but the lessons learned are transferable to other sectors. The research involved a systematic literature review, which covered the majority of the academic databases of peer-reviewed journals. The research team coded and analysed 273 (intersectional) gender-related studies and evidence published between 1998 and 2023, comprising multi-country and country-based studies from the Global South and North. The countries included in the analysis are: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, the UK, the USA, and there were some multi-country studies. The studies cover the literature from various disciplines, such as business/organisational studies, medicine and health care sciences, and social sciences. In terms of the sectors, the literature review covered 24 studies from the finance sector, 113 studies from the health sector, and 21 studies from the sustainability and innovation sector. The review also included 115 general studies that may apply to any sector.

The review of literature showed that to address gender inequality in the workplace, it is important to collect data, monitor inequalities, identify problem areas, take actions, assess the effectiveness of actions, and recalibrate the interventions while also taking the unequal power structures underneath into consideration. Previous studies have already confirmed that women employees, especially managers, face unequal standards in the organisational context; they have to prove their competencies and skills continuously, and their inputs and contributions are less valued than men’s (Jonnergård, Stafsudd, & Elg, 2010; Soleymanpour Omran, Alizadeh, & Esmaeeli, 2015; Ramos, et al., 2022).

The research shows that efforts such as mentoring, coaching, role models, training, networking and sponsorship have been around for decades, but did not really address the root causes of inequality because of the prevalence and persistence of gender inequality in the labour market and in employment. The research showed that the root causes of gender inequality has not been addressed. As stated, RE-WIRING is not about going through the obvious, well-known paths, but provides insights into inherent power structures in organisations that perpetuate gender inequality. The research for the systematic literature review highlights strategic and operational measures to address gender inequality, which interact and influence each other. Institutions create and perpetuate inequalities, so managers and leaders are gender blind to unequal power dynamics and how they manifest in organisations.

The research is published in full as a toolkit of better practices and is available on the RE-WIRING website. The paper and presentation to the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) Study Group XXIII Administration, Diversity and Equal Treatment, is not the toolkit (which is available on the project website), but rather a reflection of the public policy implications and unintended outcomes of some of the practices to address gender inequality and the under-representation of women in employment. The research for the systematic literature review showed that some measures appear to be ‘fixing women’ rather than ‘fixing organisations’. Some policies and practices that ‘fix’ women (e.g. assertiveness and confidence training, egg freezing, etc), some measures may expose women to risks such as sexual harassment (e.g. sponsorship), and others may embed gendered divisions of labour in society (e.g. flexible working). This paper, as the title suggests, therefore questions what are the better practices, the unintended policy outcomes, and how public policies could be transformed to address systemic gender inequality in society.

References

Johnston, K. (2019). Women in public policy and public administration? Public Money & Management, 39(3), 155-165.

Jonnergård, K., Stafsudd, A., & Elg, U. (2010). Performance evaluations as gender barriers in professional organizations: a study of auditing firms. Gender, Work & Organization, 17(6), 721-747.

Ramos, A., Latorre, F., Tomás, I., & Ramos, J. (2022). TOP WOMAN: Identifying barriers to women'saccess to management. European Management Journal, 40(1), 45-55.

Soleymanpour Omran, M., Alizadeh, H., & Esmaeeli, B. (2015). The analysis of the glass ceiling phenomenon in the promotion of women's abilities in organizations. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 4, 315-323.

Studies of representative bureaucracy emphasize that minorities’ representation in public organizations helps promote their interests. Some areas, however, suffer from a distinct lack of minority representation. Although studies in the field focus on the actions of minority public servants in representing citizens like them, we examine the behavior of majority group street-level bureaucrats towards minorities. Using interviews with female STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students from five Israeli academic institutions, we investigate whether male faculty members’ interactions with female students reflect their perceptions of the latter’s lack of representation. We find that one direct outcome is that male faculty members’ unequal and discriminatory behavior offends female students. Through this behavior, these faculty members also signal to the majority group students that this behavior towards women is legitimate, which is an indirect outcome. Finally, female students behave insecurely in this environment. Public managers should be aware that not only is passive representation required in public organizations, but also that in areas with distinct male representation, majority group street-level bureaucrats play an important role in creating an environment that is fair and equitable for minorities.