Data Visualization

Blog of the Data Visualization & Communication Course at OSB-AUB

“This is my favorite part about analytics: Taking boring flat data and bringing it to life through visualization” John Tukey

Women’s Share of Employment in Senior and Middle Management in the EU

Women’s Share of Employment in Senior and Middle Management in the EU

by | Apr 15, 2022 | Visualization

Sustainable development goals are set by the United Nations for countries to reach by 2030. And as you’re getting closer and closer to the deadline, I decided to dig deeper into it and check the WDI dataset to see where we stand right now.

One particular goal I looked after, since it’s the easiest to achieve, is gender equality, the fifth goal set by the UN (SDG 5.5.2).

One way to gauge the progress made by the countries in order to reach these goals was so take a look at women’s employment share in senior and middle management. Precisely in the European Union (EU), a rather advanced community when it comes to human rights.

Surprisingly enough, the EU, a utopia of ours (us, Middle Eastern), is not as perfect as we might think. The birthplace of human rights, the nest of gender equality and the one that found the solution for a better living still struggles in achieving perfect gender equality, especially in high positions. And even though we could always argue they’re doing better than us; they’re still not doing enough!

The EU’s average in women’s share of employment in senior and middle management falls around 30%, far away from the 50% target. Even worse, some countries like Italy have their average around 22% without any considerable increase these last few years.

Fortunately, other countries like Latvia reached records of 45% women employment in middle and high management. Even better, this particular country showed a significant increase in numbers in this area between the year 2009 and 2010 due to some regulations taken at that moment without any huge drop afterwards.

Italy could get some inspiration from the Latvian regulations created in order to increase women’s share and middle and senior management and try and fix their low numbers by applying easy to implement solutions and monitor their effectiveness over time.

Once we finish observing Italy, we could use this pilot experiment to try and generalize the process. Then try to implement it in other countries and turn gender inequality in managerial positions to history.

Women’s Rights and Safety

Women’s Rights and Safety

by | May 8, 2021 | Visualization

In many countries, women are yet to earn their rights and safety. As parliamentary seats are directly related to a society’s acceptance of equal gender rights, would more women in power help establish such equality?

Culture vs. Female Employment to Population Ratio

Culture vs. Female Employment to Population Ratio

by | May 5, 2020 | Dashboard, Visualization

Females in the Arab World are always faced with discriminatory situations in a ‘professional environment’. From personal questions in an interview to on-the-job obstacles, something always has to remind us of who we are and how anchored we are to it. It is not very different around the world, however, females have only recently started to break through the notions of the ‘working man’, proving that the only professional difference between them is inside the minds of those who believe it exists.

When I started exploring the World Development Indicators data on Tableau, I could not but stop at the Employment to Population Ratio. So I developed a dashboard visualized below.

Culture Vs. Female Employment to Population Ratio

As seen on the map, there are big differences in Female Employment to Population Ratios around the world. Looking deeper into the ratios of 2 adjacent but very different cultures, the European Union and Arab Countries – the line graphs to the right -, we can notice the difference in the gaps between female and male ratios. While the Male Employment to Population Ratio is almost the same across both areas, there is a big difference in the female’s numbers, of course affecting the total ratios.

I believe the needed change starts in education – not only that of little girls who need to be equipped by the time they can join the workforce, but also of societies to be welcoming, and supportive of those girls. Many forces enter in this journey, in many cases education is an unaffordable luxury, which is why the intrusion of governments and NGOs is highly needed.

The featured image is from Aptology.