OREANDA-NEWS. 5 March 2008 — On the eve of International Women’s Day, PricewaterhouseCoopers presents its second annual survey of equal opportunities for women in business.

The survey covered 59 companies from the Top 100 list of companies operating in Russia. According to the survey, these companies employed 54% more men than women. As for management positions, the share of women among newly appointed executives remained close to last year’s levels at 30% (26% in 2007). Women are more likely to hold lower responsibility management positions than men. For example, as a rule, most chief accountants are women (75%). As for finance directors, however, the situation is quite the opposite: 75% are men. The position of HR director is mostly occupied by women (63%). Executive management is, to a large extent, dominated by men, with 91% holding the position of general director and 83% board members.

Respondents say that there is no significant difference in pay levels of men and women in non-managerial positions (86%) or between male and female employees in senior management (88%). The same goes for annual bonuses: in 88% of cases it is the same for men and women.

Companies’ maternity leave policies have remained practically unchanged for the last year. Companies do not show an interest in motivating women to return early from maternity leave. Such programmes exist only in 10% of surveyed companies. The most common programme in place is flexi-time working hours.

One of the most widespread practices is a lump sum maternity benefit paid to a female employee when she takes maternity leave. As of February 2008, this practice exists in 39% of companies, although that figure has fallen since 2007 (67%). The share of companies paying a lump sum to female employees on their return from maternity leave has also dropped (from 24% in 2007 to 10% in 2008). Most companies (71%) do not have programmes for raising the qualifications of women returning to work from maternity leave. However, there has been an improvement on last year: 26% of companies have it in 2008, compared to only 11% in 2007. While most respondents say that maternity leave does not affect women’s careers, this year there are more respondents who say it does.

Overall, the survey shows that in 2008 there was a big drop in the number of programmes improving conditions for working mothers. Only 29% of companies offer a flexible working schedule; 25% of companies provide medical insurance for children, and 24% provide pre- and post-natal health insurance programmes for their female employees.