The representation of women in the healthcare sector in Australia has been a debatable topic. Statistics do show that there is a gender gap among health executives and medical professionals in the healthcare sector, and that this needs to be addressed in a timely manner.

This article gives an overview of the gender gap in the healthcare sector in Australia and what is being done with regard to this matter. It’s a growing concern that is being constantly raised by officials, especially by the female representation of the healthcare sector in Australia.

Worker representation in hospitals in Australia

It’s true that females represent the majority in the public healthcare system in Australia. However, women’s representation in positions of greater responsibility and decision-making abilities is very limited. Increasing the representation of the fairer sex in leading healthcare executive positions is a challenge at present. Gender equality policies need to be developed and implemented as a way of minimizing the gender gap in this sector.

The female representation in the healthcare sector is growing and exceeds that of the males in the sector. According to the data in the  Spanish National Health System Report, in terms of healthcare and medicine, the female representation has increased from 36.8% in 2000 up to 54.3% in 2016. Even with this data, the representation of women in key positions is less, limiting their capacity and the ability to influence the decision-making process.

The Reality of gender distribution in Healthcare Organizations in Australia

The increased female representation in a profession does not necessarily lead to the feminization of the job role. The under-representation of females in job positions could be due to stereotypes, family burdens, and inequalities of opportunity.

Leadership roles in healthcare can be divided in to three categories: management roles, medical chiefs, and nursing heads. Management positions include medical directors, managing directors, economic administrative directors, nursing directors, and the role of deputies of these directors.

There is a serious under-representation of females in these leading roles within the healthcare sector.

Advancing women in healthcare leadership

Organizational policies and practices clearly show the lack of female representation in healthcare leadership roles. Despite the many efforts to reduce the gender gap in leadership roles for healthcare executives, it still seems to be lagging behind in terms of progress.

Overall, females represent 71% of the global workforce, out of which 59% are health science and biomedical degree graduates. However, the turning point is the lower participation of women in leadership when compared with the proportion in the workforce. Some of the barriers include reduced capacity due to external responsibilities and career hindrances and credibility assumptions regarding the capabilities and confidence levels of women.

An estimated 22% of global human capital wealth is expected to promote equal participation of women in executive and leadership roles within the healthcare sectors and other industries.

Summary of strategies across categories for advancing women in leadership

The overall strategies following across categories for advancing women in leadership roles in healthcare are given below.

Organizational processes

Organizational processes can be divided into several subcategories as follows:

Leadership commitment and accountability

This involves setting gender equity and representation goals, handling discriminatory attitudes in top management, driving changes in high-level financial strategies, and creating the bottom-up effect in both female and male-dominant workplaces.

Work-life integration

This includes developing policies and procedures for enhanced work-life integration, creating career pathways with women while managing parenthood and its responsibilities, guiding managers on how to support staff that needs a career break, and supporting maternity leave and child-caring responsibilities with flexible work hours.

Reporting and implementing techniques

This includes considering gender problems at the board level, collecting gender details in a transparent manner, and measuring surrogate indicators of impact such as promotion, retention rates, and measures of employee engagement.

Gender bias elimination

This involves promoting female role models, considering gender diversity at different levels of the organization, and implementing clear policies and practices with the intention of supporting females and their professional goals.

Awareness and engagement

Awareness and engagement can be divided into subcategories as follows:

Awareness and improvement culture

This includes addressing stereotypes and processes that involve gender behaviors and skills at the highest levels, promoting diversity awareness, and providing awareness training related to supporting policies and procedures.

Organizational role modeling

This involves consulting with stakeholders to discuss priorities, hurdles, and opportunities, identifying existing policies and determining their effectiveness and where they require improvements, and advocating for gender equality in social debates.

Diversity and inclusion

This involves and providing awareness training related to supporting policies, promoting part-time flexible work options for men, setting a target pay equity across all levels, and addressing implicit bias.

Mentoring and networking

Mentoring and networking consist of one sub-category as follows:

Formal and informal approaches

This includes placing women in key functional roles to expand their scope of experience, training mentors and tailoring to individuals within a group setting, providing continuous education opportunities and allowances, and creating networks for females to connect with leaders in the field.

Leadership development

Leadership development consists of two subcategories as follows:

Design and approach

This includes space for networking and social learning with female-only programs, providing access to programs at different career levels such as executive and mid-career coaching, and promoting extra benefits of networking over time.

Content elements

This includes equipping females with the required knowledge and skills, encouraging women to apply for leadership positions, enabling women to build self-confidence, and learning how to use organizational leverage to assist women in leadership roles.

Support tools

Support tools consist of two subcategories as follows:

Recruitment & retention

This involves creating excellent governance over the hiring process, an active approach to the recruitment process, considering situational elements on work demands, promoting policies and remunerations that are not based on gender, and providing equal access to promotions regardless of the gender of the employee.

Measurement & evaluation

This involves offering a framework to diagnose and intervene in issues in organizational culture, measuring culture and career development and effectiveness in interventions, and enhancing intercultural learning.

Navigating gender bias as a woman in healthcare

Most of the barriers to supporting women to achieve leadership roles as healthcare executives are yet to be addressed. Women leaders are 5 - 9% more likely to experience issues and bias treatment from other women than from men. Many successful women in the healthcare sector continue to be exposed to negativity and toxicity in the work environment and organizational structure.

Tall poppy syndrome

The tall poppy syndrome may have harmful effects on both men and women that are upcoming leaders. It’s a serious human resource problem which means deliberately putting another’s career progression under hindrance.

87.3% of career-oriented women were undermined by fellow colleagues or seniors because of their high achievements and career progression.

An approach to issues that organizations could consider in addressing the impact of a potential tall poppy culture include conducting awareness programs and establishing clear, dedicated commitments to creating career progression opportunities across the organization. It may also include implementing clear leadership development and mentoring programs that work towards succession planning.

Medfuture is constantly working towards introducing talented and skilled healthcare executives in leadership roles regardless of their gender. Visit the Medfuture job board for the latest medical and healthcare sector jobs across Australia.