Barriers to the career progression of women in banking sector in Albania. Do perceptions differ?

International statistics and studies emphasise the gender imbalance in high managerial levels. According to the literature review the undereppresentation of women in high levels is related to the “Glass Ceiling” phenomenon. These are barriers that hinder the career progression of women. According to the Gender Organization Structure model, these barriers are divided into three categories: Individual, Social and Organizational. The purpose of this study is to find out how do perceptions about these barriers vary according to five demographic variables (age, marital status, education, managerial position and experience) of women at managerial levels in commercial banks in Albania. The Kruskal-Wallis test is used to test the differences in perception of barriers. The results of the study show that: women’s perceptions about individual barriers vary according only to the managerial level; women’s perceptions about social barriers vary only according to age and maritual status; women’s perceptions about organizational barriers vary only to marital status.

Women in Polish banking during the Second Polish Republic

This paper aims to analyse the employment of women in banking during the Second Polish Republic (i.e. interwar Poland). The banking sector was small in terms of employment. The number of people associated with this sector was 18.1 thousand in 1921 and 31.2 thousand in 1931, which accounted for 0.5-0.6% of all professionally active workers outside the agricultural sector. The banking community was dominated by men, the number of women working in banks was about 6.1 thousand in 1921 and 8.5 thousand in 1931 (30% of all human resources). This paper presents the nature of jobs performed by women, their positions and earnings. The presentation takes a number of forms: according to bank types, groups of voivodeships, size of the town and according to headquarters and branches. In all cases, the activities and earnings of women and men were compared.

Causes and effects of stress among working women in banking sector, Bangladesh

‘Stress’ word defined as psychological and physiological dimensions where it derived from physics and mechanics. The banking sector is one of the high stress creating sectors among the women workers. The objectives of this study are to determine the level of stress experienced by the working women and the factors cause stress and also an attempt was made to understand the phenomenon of various coping strategies adopted by working women in baking sector in Bangladesh. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study among 60 currently working women in different banks in Dhaka city, Bangladesh where purposive random sampling method was used to select sample size. It was estimated by this study that more than 43% of the working women faced high stress of the age group of 20-29 and those had bachelor degree only and also 62% had 1-5 years work experienced were faced high stress. 28% working women regularly felt stress in their profession in banking sector, workload was major factor of stress reported by 65% and 80% women reported that they felt stress due to low salary, job insecurity, transfer and lack of opportunity for growth and advancement; those were mostly responsible creating stress among the working women in banking sector. On the other hand, 55% participants of this study regularly felt anxiety and 33% participants felt throat pain, 47% felt body aches and pain, half felt tiredness, more than half felt anger and frustration, 47% felt back problem and 32% felt high absenteeism and sickness regularly due to stress but very few numbers of the women did yoga, physical exercise and meditation; those were effective to reduce stress. To reduce the stress level among the working women, seminars and workshops should be organized to deal with stress and women should not stay too long or unnecessarily at workplace, and they should avoid multiple tasks at a same time. Moreover, the government should also originate friendly and encouraging policies in favour of working women to encourage them; those will support them to work friendly without stressing.Mediscope Vol. 3, No. 1: January 2016, Pages 1-7

Does a balanced gender ratio improve performance? The case of Spanish banks (1999-2010)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the dynamics of the gender diversity-to-performance relationship in the Spanish banking sector in the period 1999-2010. Specifically the authors try to study how different proportions of men and women in banking institutions lead to different levels of return on assets (ROA) and sales productivity. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use conventional panel data methods to find an optimal mix of males and females which leads to higher levels of financial results. With the aim of controlling unobserved heterogeneity, equations are estimated using the random-effects model. Findings – The findings show that the proportion of women in the workforce does not affect productivity but significantly explains ROA. In addition low-moderated levels (27 per cent) of women in technical positions optimize ROA. Originality/value – This research empirically explores the business case for gender diversity going beyond the upper echelons of organizations. The authors also study how the technical qualification of employees can determine the optimal proportion of gender groups.