Two years on from her keynote address at the National Women in Transport Symposium in Melbourne, economist Dr Leonora Risse is still working harder than ever on data-based studies focusing on gender gaps in the workforce, including the gender pay gap and women’s under-representation in leadership and decision-making.
Dr Risse is also the creator of the Gender Equity Evidence Hub which is a publicly available platform to translate academic research on gender equality into practical actions.
HVIA was fortunate enough to sit down with Dr Risse, who is now an Associate Professor in Economics at Queensland University of Technology, and ask her some of the tricky questions. With women accounting for just seven per cent of technicians and trades roles in the transport industry and only four per cent of truck drivers, it seems clear that there is still an imbalance in the heavy vehicle trucking and transport industry to be addressed in Australia.
So, we asked her, “If jobs are now available to all genders, does this mean that we will lose resilience and toughness in our workforce, as may some roles require physical strength and assertiveness, that females may not typically have?”
She countered the question with another question: “Is assertiveness a quality needed to do the job?” She went on to explain, “It’s important to clarify the skill sets and attributes required for a job and to hire and promote on that basis. However, when doing this, we need to be careful not to confuse qualities that matter for the job with personality traits.”
Historically, strength was a key criterion because so many jobs required this physicality, but now we have machinery and equipment to do this.
“This is a great change as extreme manual labour has in the past given many men (and women) have crook backs by the time they reached their 40s. Safety and well-being is now an important part of job design,” she points out.
Dr Risse adds, “Qualities which we should look for to improve profitability, performance, creativity and productivity etc are shown by the research to be traits like, teamwork, collaboration, communication and risk assessment skills, which are needed in most jobs.”
These are also more gender-neutral terms, which when used in job criteria, interviews and weighting tend to result in a more gender-balanced selection of candidates.
We also asked Dr Risse how best to have conversations about gender equity as we sense that there are many who still feel that the topic is “a waste of time” or that organisations should stay focused on “hard tasks, profits, design, technical detail etc.”
Dr Risse reinforced that the best way is to utilise facts and data, in preference to experiences and opinions. She did note that “If she was a researcher for cancer, people would not typically give their opinions. In the gender equity space, she has found that everyone has an opinion on the issue, and often they believe that their opinion (and personal anecdotes) trumps the facts.”
“Despite this, data, research and evidence of what works are still the best path forward for a more balanced and fairer society. The key thing is collecting the data, because data can do a lot of talking for us. Have it at a more granular level, and leverage your data to tell your picture, to guide the next actions. It is difficult to argue back at data, although people certainly try!”
Dr Risse went on to note “That data that employers have reported to the Work Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on their gender pay gaps is not government agencies fabricating or making up, it is real. We must keep advocating for the use of data and making it visible.”
She also explains that “The research shows also that we can’t just talk about progress in terms of head counts and getting more women up the ladder. It can be flawed to usher and encourage more women into a traditionally male-concentrated industry, without firstly thinking about the workforce culture that they are walking into and asking if it is equitable, inclusive and safe for women? It is not just about women’s representation in numbers, but in their voice, experience and recognition.
“Diversity is not about morning tea parties, it’s meant to be a vehicle for arriving at more robust outcomes because you are considering a wider variety of viewpoints. This should be perceived as positive, not negative.
“Allowing time in meeting agendas for people to share perspectives and concerns is an ingredient for better outcomes, in road testing ideas before rolling them out.” Often the quietest person in the room has been paying the most attention and has the best ideas.
It was at this point in the interview that it became clear we were no longer speaking about men versus women, but in fact our culture more generally, where only the squeaky wheel gets grease. It seemed obvious that companies who consult more widely with their teams and ensure “everyone” has input would almost certainly achieve more successful, sustainable, profitable and balanced outcomes in every level of operation.
Dr Risse also explains a common concern in her research came from younger men who these days say there is no such thing as the gender pay gap and that anti-discrimination laws have gone too far and we are the ones being discriminated against.
“For these people, the view is real, and you can de-legitimise it, [but] we need to understand these comments rather than judge and, in the end, fall back on the data and objective facts to diffuse the situation. If you can do this to begin with, discussions become more objective and less personalised,” she says.
We note it’s not uncommon to have both men and women offer their own comment or advice on the topic (for instance, telling women the solution to the gender pay gap is “you just need to be more confident!”) which can be “jarring” and and not really the best approach for making progress, despite their best intentions. Dr Risse says this phenomenon where “people rely on their personal experiences and anecdotes to give advice” needs to be balanced with evidence and data.
“Sometimes the way people have coped in their own circumstances has been a short-term response to fit into a biased system, rather than a beneficial change to cleanse the biases in the system. We do not want to ostracise these people, we are not here to judge, we are here to understand where each person is coming from,” she says.
It’s a great reminder to stay focused on facts, keep it simple and lead by example rather than just pay lip service.