Unequal opportunities: why are top women executives still expected to choose between work and family?
- Top Hong Kong executive Lily Cheng talks about gender inequality persisting in pay, career expectations and work-life balance
- She cites legacy stereotypes, personal preference and cultural acceptance as hurdles to achieving equality between the sexes in the workplace
There is a popular internet meme that rings true for many working women: we expect women to work like they don’t have children and to raise children as if they don’t work.
In recent months, a slew of women in power have resigned: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. All three have cited to some extent the wish to spend time with their family and concentrate on their personal lives.
Taking these reasons at face value, one is left with the question, why are women still forced to choose between the two? Why aren’t more men retreating from positions of power for family? What more work needs to be done for gender equality in the workplace?
“There are many reasons, but one of them is that our corporate world makes it hard to be in the C-suite and be able to be a co-parent and co-homemaker,” says Lily Cheng, independent non-executive director of Swire Properties, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery, Octopus Cards and Sunevision in Hong Kong.
“Therefore, it causes family units to establish a binary division of labour (two roles: one partner works, the other is the primary caretaker) so one person stands the best chance of making it. And when division of labour is binary, then it will most often end up with men pursuing careers and women taking on the primary caretaker responsibility.”
