關注社會:爲何獲得MBA的女性較少?
Why more women don't get MBAs
It's a bit puzzling: Over the past 20 years, as women have made tremendous gains in the business world, the percentage of B-school students who are female has remained at about 30%, or roughly the same now as in the late '80s. (By contrast, female enrollment in law and medical schools has risen over the same time period to about 50%.)
The Forté Foundation started in 2001 with a mission: to encourage more women to consider getting an MBA, and to provide them with information about how to do it.
Sponsored by 21 companies, among them IBM (IBM, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), Ernst & Young, American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), and Avon (AVP, Fortune 500), and 37 B-schools -- including Harvard, Chicago, Wharton, MIT, and Columbia -- Forté is holding a series of conferences called "The MBA Value Proposition" in five cities (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Boston) between now and October 1.
The events are designed to answer questions women may have about everything from how to finance a graduate business degree to what to do if their math skills are rusty. For more information or to register online, go to
I recently spoke with Elissa Ellis Sangster, Forté's executive director, about their work. Some excerpts from our conversation:
Let me play devil's advocate here for a minute and ask, why do women need to go to B-school? Or I'll put it this way: Does anyone really need to get an MBA in order to get ahead in businesses other than investment banking or consulting?
Well, plenty of people are successful without an MBA. But the degree does give you the ability to take your career to a higher level.
For one thing, it gives you a great network of people who are in a position to support your career in the future, and it teaches you analytical and decision-making skills that are useful in any industry, so that you have the flexibility and the nimbleness to move easily from one role to another or one industry to another.
That's an important asset, especially in this economy. An MBA is really an investment for life.
Beyond that, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has done studies showing that the more education you have, the more you earn over the course of your lifetime, and the less likely you are to be unemployed.
Right now, the overall unemployment rate is almost 10%, but for people with a master's degree, it's 2.4%. That's pretty striking.
Why are there still relatively few women MBAs?
Well, the thing that launched Forté eight years ago was a huge study of this question, by researchers at the University of Michigan and Catalyst that revealed four main reasons.
First, women were concerned about balancing work, school, and home-life responsibilities if they went back to school.
Second, they didn't see many role models -- female MBAs who were managing to juggle everything.
Third, they expressed doubts as to whether they had the quantitative background and the advanced math skills to handle MBA courses.
And fourth, they weren't getting much, if any, encouragement from their employers to get an advanced degree.
To a large extent those concerns have not gone away. So we address those issues in our forums and through our online network of about 40,000 businesswomen. We're also reaching out to undergraduate students in fields like liberal arts and engineering, holding on-campus events called "Career Labs" that encourage them to consider business careers.
How do you view women's role in the business world today in general? Is the glass half empty or half full?
It's certainly half full in the sense that, as Fortune's list of the most powerful women shows, more women are advancing in companies.
But it's half empty at the very top. There are still only 13 female CEOs of major companies, up from four a few years ago. I did the math, and at that rate of advancement, it will take women until 2096 to reach parity with men.
Also, Catalyst did a study showing that, at the senior management level -- one or two rungs below CEO -- 19% of women lost their jobs in this recession, versus 6% of men. I don't know why. It's probably due to a combination of things, including the fact that women often don't have the kinds of strong professional networks their male counterparts have. An MBA could help with that!
在過去的20年裏，儘管女性在商界的成就碩果累累，但商學院學生中的女性比例還停留在30%左右，和80年代晚期相當，這很讓人費解。（相較而言，在法律和醫科學校就讀的女性在同期已經增長了50%左右）。
復地基金會（Forté Foundation）創立於2001年，其宗旨是鼓勵更多的女性考慮去獲得MBA學位，並且爲她們提供相關的信息，指導她們如何操作。
復地基金會由IBM、高盛（Goldman Sachs）、安永（Ernst & Young）、美國運通（American Express）、雅芳（Avon）以及包括哈佛、芝加哥大學、沃頓、麻省理工學院和哥倫比亞大學等在內的37所商學院資助創辦。復地基金會從即日起至10月1日將在5個城市（舊金山、洛杉磯、芝加哥、紐約和波士頓）舉辦題爲“MBA價值命題”的系列會議。
這次活動旨在解答女性可能遇到的一些問題，比如如何解決爲獲得學位而產生的經濟方面的問題以及如何解決數學能力差的問題。欲獲得更多信息或者欲註冊，歡迎登陸
最近我與復地的執行董事愛麗薩•愛麗絲•桑斯特（Elissa Ellis Sangster）進行了一次談話，問及了其工作的有關問題。以下是我們談話的節選內容：
首先我想問句不該問的話：爲什麼女性要去讀商學院？或者說，是不是想在商界有所成就，除了去投行和諮詢公司以外，就只有讀MBA纔可以？
的確，很多商界成功人士都沒讀過MBA，但是這個學位會使你在職業生涯中更上一層樓。
一方面，讀MBA會爲你帶來一個人際關係網，其中那些有職權的人會在將來你的職業發展道路上助你一臂之力。讀MBA也會培養你的分析和決策能力，這對任何行業都是十分有用的。這樣，你會遊刃有餘的穿梭於各個行業間，轉行會容易的多。
這在當下的經濟狀況中尤其是一筆重要的資產，一個MBA學位是對一生的投資。
除此之外，美國勞工統計局做出的相關研究顯示，一個人所受的教育越多，其職業道路上的收穫就越多，並且失業的可能性就越小。
現在失業率已經接近10%，但是獲得碩士學位的人羣中失業人口僅佔2.4%，這是十分令人震驚的數字。
爲什麼獲得MBA的女性依然相對較少？
8年前由密歇根大學（University of Michigan）和Catalyst的研究者就此問題進行了一項大型研究，揭示了四點主要原因，並促成了復地基金會的成立。
首先，女性回校讀書，她們要考慮平衡工作、學業與家庭生活的關係。
其次，她們沒有那種可以拿來效仿的成功處理一切的女性MBA的學生典範。
第三，她們也懷疑自己有沒有足夠的資格和高等數學能力來攻讀MBA課程。
第四，她們的僱主不會太積極地鼓勵她們去攻讀學位，或者說根本不會鼓勵。
這些擔憂依然在很大程度上存在。所以我們將在論壇和擁有4萬名商界女性的在線網絡處理解答這些問題。我們也會爲人文科學、工程等專業的在校本科生舉行名爲“職業生涯實驗室”的校園活動，來鼓勵他們考慮從事商界的職業。
總的來說，您覺得當今世界女性在商界扮演怎樣的角色？你對此持樂觀態度還是悲觀態度？
從某些角度來說很樂觀，因爲《財富》的最具影響力商界女性名單顯示出女性在企業裏都風頭正健。
但是在高層職位來看確實相當悲觀。大型公司的女性CEO仍然只有13位，和許多年前一樣。我做了一下數學分析，照這個速度，想要與男性相當，我們得等到2096年。
同樣，Catalyst做了一項研究顯示，在低於CEO一到兩級的高級管理人員中，大約有19%的女性在這場經濟蕭條中失去工作，而男性則只有6%。我不知道這是爲什麼。這可能是綜合因素共同作用的結果，比如女性沒有同等職位男性所擁有的強大職業關係網絡。但是，一個MBA學位可能會在這一點上爲女性帶來裨益。
