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An article from Economists:
Women and MBAs
Men's work?
Jun 12th 2003
Why more women don't go to business school
WHERE have all the women gone? Plenty to law school and medical school, where they typically equal, at least in America, the number of men. But business school? Here is an oddity. Business schools have bust a gut to persuade women to take MBAs, but with disappointing results. In 1988-89 women accounted for 28.6% of first-year students enrolled on MBA programmes at the 20 schools that topped Business Week's annual ratings; in 2002-03, 30.3%. This year, says Kristine Laca, head of admissions at the Tuck business school at Dartmouth, women's enrolments are down right across the industry.
The disappointing numbers are not confined to America. At the London Business School, 26% of current first-year MBAs and 29% of second years are women. Everywhere, numbers are low despite strenuous efforts by many business schools to attract more women.
A group of business schools and companies has reacted by setting up the Forté Foundation, based at the University of Michigan, to try to discover why more women do not apply. One issue seems to be cost, says Jeanne Wilt, who established the foundation. A two-year MBA course at a top school typically costs about $100,000, even without counting lost earnings. Some women will forgo a place at a top school for a full scholarship at a lesser school. Moreover, three to five years after leaving, women MBAs typically earn less than their male counterparts do.
Women seem to drop out of business careers in their 20s. At IMD in Lausanne, which usually takes students aged about 30 rather than (as at American schools) 26, only 16% of those on the one-year MBA programme are women. Yet IMD says it takes a representative proportion of women at the appropriate level in business.
Business also seems to have an image problem with women. “They worry that business is not a caring profession,” says Constance Helfat, Tuck's professor of strategy and technology. “But then, neither is law.” Ms Wilt says that women worry about long working hours, a lack of ethics and an absence of role models.
But could it be that women know something that men don't? After all, women get 30% of MBAs, but they own 38% of America's businesses. And they may soon own more. Ms Helfat thinks that women in business are more likely than men to start their own companies. Maybe the truth is that you can be a good businesswoman without an MBA—but not a good businessman. |
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