At a time when Americans are congratulating themselves for having a diverse field of political candidates, their business leadership still doesn't equally value diverse employees and managers. In fact, progress for women and minorities in terms of both pay and power has stalled or regressed at many of the nation's biggest companies. This inequality shapes perceptions about who can or should be a leader.

    More than 40 years after job discrimination was outlawed, the wage gap between white men and just about everyone else persists. The one exception is for Asian-American men, whose median wages were just 1% less than those of white men who worked full time, year round, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' survey in 2005, the latest year for which data are available.

    Black men, by contrast, earned 74% of the wages of white males; Hispanic men earned 58%.

    Women, overall, are substantially lagging behind men in pay. Full-time female employees earned 77% of all men's median wages. Breaking it down in terms of race, Asian-American women earned 78% of the median annual pay of white men; white women earned 73%; black women, 63%; and Hispanic women, 52%.

    There are, of course, many theories about the reasons behind the pay discrepancies. Women may take time off to care for children, so they don't build up the tenure that leads to promotions and higher salaries; or they don't demand raises as often as men do because they've been socialized not to be assertive; or they don't have the right skills for the best-paying jobs.

    The wage gap persists among young women who have more education than men their age. Last year, 45% of women ages 25 to 34 had a college degree, compared with 36% of young men. But women's median earnings overall were 14% lower, according to an analysis of recent Census Bureau data by Timothy Casey, a senior staff attorney at Legal Momentum, a New York advocacy group. Again, the gap may partly reflect that far fewer women than men major in engineering, business and other fields leading to high-paying jobs. Still, it is a reminder of how girls need to be encouraged to recognize their math and science abilities.

    Young women earned 20% to 25% less than young men at the same education level -- about equal to men at an education level below theirs. 'It's disheartening because the rate of progress toward equality that we saw in the 1970s and 1980s has slowed in recent years,' says Heidi Hartmann, president and economist at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. 'At the current rate, equal pay will take another 50 years.'
White men also still wield the most power in business. Whites make up 81.6% of the work force and 83.5% of managers. Men of color held 6.4% of corporate-officer positions at the 260 big companies that agreed to verify data in a 2005 survey by research group Catalyst. Typically, corporate officers hold titles of director or vice president and higher.

    For women, who now represent half of all managers and professionals, the climb to the top has gotten tougher. In 2007, women held 15.4% of corporate-officer posts at the nation's top 500 companies, down from 16.4% in 2005, Catalyst said. Women of color hold just 2%.
The percentage of female officers in line jobs that lead to the corner office also fell -- by 6% to 27.2% last year, according to a Catalyst survey of the top 500 companies. By comparison, one-half of male corporate officers held line jobs. Some 74 of the nation's top 500 companies -- 10 more than in 2006 -- had no female corporate officers at all. Many other household-name companies, including Microsoft, GE and Wal-Mart, had fewer than 25% women in C-level posts.

    Just five companies -- Reynolds American, Office Depot, Northeast Utilities, Edison International, Reliance Steel & Aluminum and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans -- had women in more than 40% of their corporate-officer jobs.

    The lack of diversity means that whenever a top minority or female executive is ousted or retires, any gains are erased. It also reinforces stereotypes that women and minorities somehow lack leadership skills.

    Morgan Stanley, for example, now has just four female corporate officers since the recent ouster of co-president Zoe Cruz and the departure of Eileen Murray, former head of global technology and operations. There are just three African-American CEOs at large companies -- American Express, Aetna and Darden Restaurants. That's 50% fewer than late last year before Merrill Lynch's Stan O'Neal and Sears' Aylwin B. Lewis left their jobs and Time Warner's Richard Parsons retired.

    What will it take to change this picture at a time of fierce competition for a shrinking number of management jobs? It requires business chiefs who understand that diversity is good for the bottom line because it enables them to recruit the best talent, enlist broad thinking and reach diverse customers world-wide. And it requires CEOs to link their managers' compensation to achieving more diversity while offering development programs for all employees.

    This is happening at companies like Ernst & Young and IBM, which evaluate managers on how well they retain and advance women and minorities. IBM, which does business in 170 countries, 'wants a work force as broad and diversified as its customer base,' says Ron Glover, vice president, global workforce diversity.     

    當美國人為有多元化的政治候選人而慶幸時，他們的商界領袖卻沒有對多元性的員工和管理人員一視同仁。事實上，在美國許多大公司里，女性和少數族裔在薪酬和權力方面的進展都停滯不前甚至出現退步。這種不平等造就了人們對于何人能夠或者應該成為領導者這一問題的傳統觀念。

    在用工歧視被定為非法的40多年后，白人男性和其他所有人種間的薪酬差距依然存在。唯一的例外是亞裔美國人，據美國勞工統計局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)2005年的一項調查，亞裔美國男性的薪酬中值只比全年全職工作的白人男性低1%。這一結果是可獲得的最新數據。

    相比之下，黑人男性的薪水僅為白人男性的74%，西班牙裔男性為58%。

    總體而言，女性的薪酬遠遠落后于男性。全職女性員工的薪酬僅為所有男性薪酬中值的77%。若按族裔劃分，亞裔美國女性的薪酬為白人男性年薪中值的78%，白人女性為73%，黑人女性63%，而西班牙裔女性為52%。

    當然，有許多關于薪酬差異原因的理論。女性可能會抽出時間照顧孩子，因此她們難以積聚升遷和加薪所需的足夠“資本”；或是她們不像男性那樣經常要求擢升，因為她們謙遜低調；又或者她們不具備相關技能而無法勝任一份肥差。

    有些女性雖然受教育程度高于同齡男性，但她們的薪酬依然不及后者。據紐約女權組織Legal Momentum資深律師蒂莫西•凱西(Timothy Casey)對人口普查局(Census Bureau)新近數據進行的分析，去年，年齡在25至34歲的女性中有大學學歷的比例為45%，而同齡男性只有36%。但女性總體的薪酬中值卻比男性低14%。這一差距再次從某種程度上反映出，以工程學、商務及其他高薪工作領域為專業的女性比男性少得多。這也提醒人們，應當鼓勵女性發揮自己的數學和科學才能。

    如果處于同一教育水平，女性的薪酬則要比男性低20%至25%──與教育水平比自己低一個層次的男性相當。婦女政策研究協會(Institute for Women's Policy Research)會長、經濟學家海蒂•哈特曼(Heidi Hartmann)談到，“這種情況令人沮喪，因為上世紀七、八十年代那種走向平等的趨勢近年來又減緩了。按當前的速度，同工同酬還得再要50年才能實現。”

    白人男性在商場上仍是權利的主導。白種人占員工總數的81.6%，管理人員中有83.5%為白種人。研究機構Catalyst 2005年進行的一項調查中，同意核實數據的260家大公司里，擔任高級管理職務的有色人種男性僅占6.4%。高級職員的頭銜通常是董事或副總裁以上級別。

    對于已占據所有經理和專業技術人員半數的女性而言，升遷至高級職位變得越來越難了。Catalyst指出，2007年美國500強公司中，15.4%的高管職位由女性擔任，較2005年的16.4%有所下降。由有色人種女性擔任的高管職位僅占2%。

    根據Catalyst對500強公司的一項調查，有機會升任高管的女性管理人員的比例也有所下降，去年的比例為27.2%，降幅達6%。相比之下，男性管理人員中，半數擔任著具有升遷機會的職位。美國500強公司中約有74家根本沒有女性高管，這一數字比2006年多了10家。微軟(Microsoft)、通用電氣(GE)和沃爾瑪(Wal-Mart)等許多知名公司的高管職位中，女性比例還不到25%。

    只有Reynolds American、Office Depot、Northeast Utilities、Edison International、Reliance Steel & Aluminum以及Thrivent Financial for Lutherans，這些公司的女性高管比例超過了40%。

    缺乏多元性意味著，只要一個少數族裔或女性高管去職或退休，所有的進展就不復存在了。這種情況也強化了人們認為女性和少數族裔缺乏領導才能的過時觀點。

    以摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)為例，自其聯席總裁佐伊•克魯茲(Zoe Cruz)離職、全球操作及技術部前主管艾琳•默里(Eileen Murray)離任之后，該公司現僅有四名女性高管。大公司里只有美國運通(American Express)、安泰保險公司(Aetna)和Darden Restaurants三家的CEO為非裔美國人。去年年底，美林公司(Merrill Lynch)的斯坦•奧尼爾(Stan O'Neal)、Sears的埃爾文•B.劉易斯(Aylwin B. Lewis)以及時代華納(Time Warner)的理查德•帕森斯(Richard Parsons)相繼離任，這使得非裔CEO的比例下降了50%。

    在管理層職位減少，競爭尤為激烈的時代，怎樣才能改變如此現狀？這需要商界領袖從內心深處明白，多元化是個好東西，它可以幫助企業招募到最優秀的人才，獲得廣泛的見解，并影響全世界的各類客戶群。不僅如此，它還要求CEO在為所有員工提供發展規劃的同時，將給管理人員的獎勵與更好地實現多元化聯系起來。

    安永(Ernst & Young)和IBM等公司正是如此，這些公司會根據管理人員保有和提升女性及少數族裔員工的情況對他們進行評估。IBM全球員工多元化副總裁羅恩•格羅夫(Ron Glover)說，在170個國家開展業務的IBM希望自己的員工像其客戶群一樣廣泛和多樣化。