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Davos World Economic Forum 2015 – Only 17% of Participants Are Women
Catherine Boyle
| 16 January 2015
There are more
women at this year's gathering of the global business and politics elite in
Davos, after a controversial fall in female delegates in 2014. Last year, the
proportion of female attendees dropped for the first time in the meeting's
history, to just 15 percent.
In 2015, according
to World Economic Forum (WEF) statistics, 17 percent of participants are women,
and although this is nowhere near parity, it does mark a move upwards again.
WEF always
includes high-profile women like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg or Yahoo CEO
Marissa Mayer as co-chairs during the Davos meeting. This year, Winnie
Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, and Katherine Garrett-Cox,
chief executive of Alliance Trust, are also both co-chairs.
Where were all
the women in Davos?
There will be
sessions devoted to gender and diversity, but still, the proportion of women
attendees continues to make it vulnerable to criticism.
Calls for
companies and organizations to do more to promote women are nothing new –
although there are plenty of interpretations of why women often don't do as
well as men with similar abilities in the workplace.
"Without a
little nudge, it's easy to gravitate toward colleagues and leaders who think,
look and act like we do," Beth Brooke-Marciniak, EY global vice chair of
public policy, said as part of a report by the consultancy called "Women.
Fast forward: The time for gender parity is now."
"Unconscious
bias on the part of those in power is undoubtedly partly responsible for the
glacial pace of change."
Are you a
spouse? No, I'm a CEO
The event's elite
status can be seen in the fact that 30 percent of participants are business
chief executives, while heads of state and government account for 2 percent of
participants.
The list of
attendees at Davos also shows changes in the geopolitical landscape.
Global
conflict is world’s top threat: Davos
There is a
high-profile Ukrainian delegation, including President Petro Poroshenko, and
Natalia Ann Jaresko, the country's finance minister.
Yet it also paints
a picture of continued dominance by Western powers. Americans make up 27
percent of participants, with the U.K. and Switzerland each accounting for 10
percent of those attending. Russia and China, in contrast, account for 2
percent each of participants.