What Women Want? Maybe Not MBAs

CAREER ADVANCEMENT, BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Women are more likely than men to begin considering graduate management education as undergraduates — in the U.S., by a 27%-to-17% margin — and are more likely to be prompted to apply because the timing was convenient. But this is largely only the case in Western countries, where the profile of the female graduate business degree candidate differs widely from the male; in India and China, where female Global Strivers are more likely to be found, women’s motivations and application behaviors more closely resemble those of male applicants from these countries, GMAC found.

Segments of women with funding challenges are less likely to pursue MBA degrees. Balanced Careerists and Socioeconomic Climbers, who report having the greatest funding challenges, are the least likely to pursue an MBA degree and most likely to seek a non-MBA degree instead — and they also are less likely to say they are willing to pay “whatever it takes” to attend a top-ranked business school.

“When we look at the segmentation, one of the interesting things that we see out of the seven global segments — in particular in the U.S. and Europe — is that there are two segments that are over-indexed for women: the Balanced Careerist and the Socioeconomic Climber. Both of those, not surprisingly, are motivated by more practical concerns in terms of return on investment. The Balanced Careerist in particular is more likely to identify with a statement like, ‘Work-life balance is important.’ Balanced Careerists are really looking to advance their careers but it can’t be at the expense of everything else in their lives that they are juggling.

“What we saw was that when we asked men, ‘Would you be willing to pay whatever it takes to go to one of the top-ranked graduate schools?’ they said yes at rates significantly higher than women.”

4 FACTORS KEEPING WOMEN A STEP BEHIND

The new report was issued to coincide with International Women’s Day globally and National Women’s History month in the U.S. But it was not the only report released to coincide with these events. The Global Network for Advanced Management, a consortium of 29 leading B-schools, released a study the same week chronicling the challenges faced by women in global business. The study included input from more than 5,000 students at 28 schools and pinpointed four main trends for inequality in the workplace:

• Job productivity is seen as more important than availability at the office
• Workplaces favor assertive women (and men), with slight variation across countries
• Respondents expect that women take on more childcare responsibilities.
• Working remotely during regular business hours is viewed negatively, while working remotely outside them is a plus. Rather than create more flexibility, technology may be extending the hours people are expected to work

The results show that largely because these specific factors, women are still underrepresented in business leadership roles worldwide. It amounts to a question of the reconciliation of work and family life — work-life balance, and women’s stronger stated desire than men to achieve it.

This is in keeping with GMAC’s findings for why women prefer other business master’s programs than the MBA, Su says. “A two-year MBA program is a longer commitment,” she says. “It tends to be a little more later in their career path because most MBA programs require three to five years of experience, and so it takes them out of their job market for a longer period of time.”

ONLINE, WOMEN MAKING HUGE GAINS

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business also released a batch of statistics to mark International Women’s Day, and in one respect, they largely fall in line with the conclusions of GMAC and GNAM: Women comprise 36% of all those enrolled in MBA programs in AACSB-accredited schools, a steady rate even as overall enrollment has dropped by 4% since 2013-2014.

However, in that three-year span, total online MBA enrollment has increased by almost 24%, and while female representation has increased only slightly as a percentage of that total online enrollment, nearly 34% more females had enrolled in an online MBA program in 2015-16 than in 2013-14. Contrast that growth with only 20% growth among male enrollees, and a major trend seems to emerge.

“Women value the MBA degree, but it’s outweighed by their more pragmatic approaches in terms of what they believe they need be able to continue to advance in their career,” Su says.

Adds AACSB’s Hannah McLeod: “These findings suggest that although female representation continues to be rather stagnant within the MBA population, which as a whole seems to be shrinking, there is significant interest within the online MBA space, at a higher rate than their male counterparts. One can speculate on the various reasons driving this trend, but the online space appears to be an increasingly attractive option for MBA students, particularly females.”

B-SCHOOLS: ‘DEVELOP BOLDER STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING WOMEN IN CLASSROOM’

GMAC’s report concludes that to change the apparent trajectory of female MBA enrollment, business schools should consider new marketing and program management efforts, including addressing in some way women’s propensity for early planning and need for greater convenience. This can be accomplished chiefly in the admissions process, GMAC’s report says, noting that 27% of full-time MBA programs reported an increase in the number of deferrals from 2015-2016 to 2016-2017. “In the short term, we’re hoping that MBA programs that want to attract more women do that by connecting with them more,” Su says, “making sure that they’re talking about the flexible options that are out there. There’s just less awareness, in all honesty, about the offerings in the traditional two-year MBA that will allow women to achieve the work-life balance they seek.”

Communication is key, GMAC contends: For women in Western countries, schools should emphasize that earning an MBA is a way to advance more quickly in their careers and earn more; for women in India, schools should stress their academic reputation as well as job opportunities and global recognition that will come from a degree.

Perhaps most importantly, Su says, schools can evaluate and implement strategies for better allocating financial aid to women.

“What we need to look for is, how do schools look for opportunities to talk about what kind of tuition assistance they have?” she says. “How do we look at potentially more need-based scholarships? How do we help them get financial aid information, make it more readily available? And on top of that, we just need as an industry to continue to talk about the strong return on investment for two-year MBA programs.”

Adds Sangeet Chowfla: “It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking of women as a monolithic block and to view their lack of parity in MBA classrooms as a failure on the part of business schools. The insights in this white paper clearly reveal that women are distinct from men in what they are seeking from their business education experience, and their behaviors differ between countries and behavior types. In our opinion, business schools have made great strides in inclusivity and shaping their recruiting and admissions processes to ensure a diverse classroom. We hope that equipped with this paper’s data and insights, business schools can develop even bolder strategies for increasing the number of women in their classrooms and achieve the gender parity seen in other sectors of graduate education.”

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