WOMAN POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN ROMANIA VERSUS OTHER COUNTRIES

 

Rocsana B. Manea Tonis

Spiru Haret University, Romania

E-mail: rocsense39@yahoo.com

 

Cezar Braicu

Academy of Economic Studies,, Romania

E-mail: cbraicu@hotmail.com

 

Radu Bucea-Manea-Tonis

Hyperion University, Romania

E-mail: radub_m@yahoo.com

 

Elena Gurgu

Spiru Haret University, Romania

E-mail: elenagurgu@yahoo.com

 

Submission: 9/15/2019

Revision: 10/2/2019

Accept: 10/22/2019

 

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the Romanian women influence as political leader over the Romanian economy. The whole research is based on global gender gap index for Romania analyzed on 2013-2018 period. The data was integrated in a linear regression model. The model interpretation findings show that reducing gender gap in Romania could bring an increase on Romanian GDP.  The paper states that this situation is due to a higher emotional intelligence of Romanian women as leaders. They are also characterized by perseverance and conscience. In 2017 Romania made important progress in reducing this gap, but it seems that the world political dimension gap could be closed within 99 years.

Keywords: political leadership, woman, Romania, gender gap, political empowerment, GDP

1.       INTRODUCTION

            Conflicts within groups can be beneficial, and here comes the role of the leader. Cognitive diversity is the important antecedent of creativity and innovation, the emergence of task-related conflicts being beneficial to creative performance. Integrating and coordinating different points of view allows for new forms of task solving. Examining divergences can lead to the discovery of unobservable solutions. A good leader will extract the best solution to the most complex conflicts.

            In most cultures there are woman capable to assume leadership roles, having the education required, but not having the experience and the acceptance of the community for them in this role (BIEREMA, 2016). Moreover, they have important family responsibilities that men usually do not to like to assume. For woman it is difficult to maintain a good balance between life and work.

            For the political gender gaps was incriminated “women's poorer knowledge of political institutions, self-assessment of leadership skills, literacy rates and asset ownership, or their mobility and voice in household decisions” The women experience an unfair and inappropriate treatment starting from his position in the household, in work, in social life, and others (KESUMA, 2018). Some authors (IYER; MANI, 2019) proved that real causes of this gap are fare away of personal characteristics, being in fact external factors, such as the “roles played by voters, political parties or societal groups, that may constitute important barriers to women's political participation”.

            Prioritizing bottom line results and accountability are also very important, but in a balance with emotional comfort.  Men like to analyze the figures and woman like to analyze the soul. A study on funding’s CEOs in USA show that women are characterized by creativity and men by teamwork (HMIELESKI et at., 2019). Some studies (MOKAT et al., 2018) shows that women political leaders take decisions under the influence of religious leaders, ignoring cultural value.

            Important lessons of leadership we can take from Hillary Clinton.  She has crossed the borders imposed by the “expectations of the role”. She struggled to expand the health insurance for disadvantaged children, she supported new legislation for protecting children coming from abusive environments and new legislation for reducing violence against woman. She chooses her own way, without facing the opposition.

            She preferred not to stick to stubborn beliefs, but to adapt her politics in accordance with the social-economic context. She maintained her way, fighting for the cause she believes in, not being influenced by unfair criticism, or media trends.

            The difference between woman and men leaders are due to the context, the job type and/or industry/sector, culture within the organization and group composition (GIPSON, 2017). She demonstrates that the best leader, is not a man or a woman, but a qualified, capable professional with a very high emotional coefficient (EQ).

            Women leaders have a higher EQ. Due to their role of child-bearers and care-givers they are on the “Left” wings in politics. Women naturally facilitate consensus, collectivity advantages and compassion (DOWNING, 2018). Leaders with focus on communal goal orientation have pro-social attitude, are more responsible in power manifestation and enforce gender equity (LONDON et al., 2019).

            “There cannot be true democracy unless woman’s voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.” – Hillary Clinton (1997), Vital Voices Conference in Vienna, Australia.

            Charismatic leadership is a feature with positive influence on political and business leadership, but a self-protective leadership has a negative influence in political leadership participation (BULLOUGH, 2014). This is way Hillary gain so much popularity.

            Some studies show that women’ leadership has the advantage of trust in times of crisis, when consequences are known (POST et al., 2019). A lack of today woman leadership is that they do not form woman leadership groups to gain more power. Moreover, some of them adopt masculine style leadership, such as Gandhi, Meir, and Thatcher, and they don’t have a positive influence on woman statute. (JALALZAI, 2010). There are other leaders to be mentioned, such us Mary Barra of GM, Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook.

            Having in mind the statements before the authors decided to analyses the global gender gap weight to find out woman political empowerment over GDP in Romania.

            This indicator was initiated in 2006 by the World Economic Forum, introducing a new index (Global Gender Gap Index - GGGI) with four dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment, to reveal and track over time the gender-based disparities and a panorama of this inequity over the world.  The main objective was to find out stress points met by people in their struggle to professional evolution and show the opportunities arise by reducing gender gaps.

 

Figure 1: GGGI over the world and Romania value in 2017

Source: adaptation after WEF,2017)

            Woman empowerment would facilitate a “dynamic of reciprocity whereby claims about shared European concepts of gender equality serve to address EU democratic deficits, and EU frameworks discursively legitimate gender knowledge and expertise” (ENDERSTEIN, 2017).

            Gender dimension is particularly important in the current situation, in which the Members States are starting to implement the initiatives for sustainable urban development co-funded by the Structural Funds¹ in this period of the Cohesion Policy (2014-2020) (DE GREGORIO, 2017)

             A panorama of GGGI for 2018 is presented in figure1, where the blue diamond shows the average of the index and each dimension (sub index) and the red empty diamond approximates Romania position in reference with other countries. Overall, Romania has a small index, very close to average GGGI and India GGGI. The country with the highest index and a very small gap between genders is a democratic country, Iceland. In Romania in 2018 the index is small especially because of the political empowerment dimension, 0,159, which is much below under average, meaning that in Romania the gender gap is very high.

            The GGGI it places Romania low below United Arab Emirates and United States. The other 3 dimensions (economic, education, health) show a good balance between genders. Talking about education GGGI places Romania between China and United Kingdom.  Thus, in this article we put the focus on political status in Romania, in order to develop a regression model to measure the impact of woman in politics on GDP.

            In 2018 Romania has the rank 63, out of 149 countries. In 2017 Romania has the rank 58, out of 144 countries, very close to Croatia (54) and Ukraine (61). The overall gap in 2017 (32%) maintained almost the same gap as last year. An average gap of 32.0% remains to be closed worldwide across the four Index dimensions in order to achieve universal gender parity, compared to an average gap of 31.7% a year before (WEF, 2017). Social media influences political participation and the political views and decisions of citizens, with this influence being perceived as low by users of social media (Gounas, 2019).

2.       ROMANIAN WOMAN POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

            Analyzing the GGGI for Romania for 2006-2018 period it is obvious that the stress points that increase the gender gap are politics empowerment, and in a small percent economic participation and opportunity (Figure 2).

            In Romania the most important factors that influence economic participation are the higher percent of men engaged in functions with higher education (legislator, managers, or senior officials).  Talking about central government there are a lot of woman in executed or limited liability posts. Also, there are very few women in high decision positions.

            The estimated earned income (PPP US$) and wage equality for similar work sub-index show that the men are favored earing a higher salary for the same function/activity. This means the 2 managers (a woman and a man) have different wages, accomplishing the same activities and having the same responsibility.

Figure 2:  GGGI for Romania throughout the period 2006-2018 (own processing)

            The difference between woman and men in labor force participation rates (57.3 woman, 74.3 men, 0.77 ratio in 2017, decreased in 2018 at 0.75. This difference is explained by the fact that most of the women in the countryside are not employed (Figure3).

Figure 3: Economic participation and opportunity in Romania throughout the period 2013-2018 (own processing)

            Because of the evolution of technologies and the high rate of woman culture there is no gap in professional and technical level/activity. This assertion is based on the educational attainment score that shows that regarding the process of education woman and men are both involved in the same percent. This means that in Romania there is no discrimination regarding the woman and men education (Figure 4)

Figure 4: Educational attainment in Romania in 2013-2018 period (own processing)

            In Romania the Health and survival sub score shows that woman and men can expect to live in good health on long term. The phenomenon of “missing woman”, obvious in a lot of countries, with a higher preference for sons, is not present in Romania (Figure 5). In Romania the overall population sex ratio is slightly in the woman advantage. The situation reveres only in 2016 and 2018 (Figure 6). It is worrying that population growth % is in constant decrease since 2013 to present, affecting the entire economic situation.

Figure 5: Health and survival in Romania in 2013-2018 period (own processing)

Figure 6: Population evolution in Romania in 2013-2018 period (own processing)

            In 2017 Romania had only 20 women in parliament versus 79 men. In ministerial positions there are 24 woman and 76 men. The sub index woman in parliament shows a gender ration of 0.26. The sub index woman in ministerial positions shows a gender ration of 0.32. It was the highest score in the last 10 years, when the ratio was less than 0.2.

            In 2018 Romania has reduced the gap in Political Empowerment, although there is a small fluctuation in wage equality woman and men with the similar functions. After 20 years of democracy, Romania has first woman prime minister in 2018, Viorica Dancila, but no woman as head of state. Viorica Dancila has a long background in politic carrier, being a member of Social Democratic Party (PSD) since 1996, and had some other public positions in Romania, before becoming a member of the European Parliament in 2009. Nowadays, 19% of members from Romanian Parliament are women and almost a third of the ministers are women (MARICA,2108).

            Romania can take as good example countries such as: Ireland, Finland (choses woman as president), Germany (Chancellor) and Spain (50% of the government are women), followed by Denmark, Sweden and Austria.

            In Romania the top positions were originally distributed on the basis of gender equality in multinational companies, then in the political environment, following the pattern of stable economies (Germany, UK).

            In opposition to mainstream criticism of emotionally-sensitive decisions, it can be observed a decrease of aggressive or vulgar messages in the political environment and the encouragement of amicable solutions in labor or commercial conflicts under the women's management. The most delicate aspect is that any appointment of a female person in a top position is assimilated to nepotism in the most favorable cases, in a paternalist society marked by traditional values. Misogynist attitudes may be in the context of a tense organizational climate, dominated by men at executive and female leadership levels.

Figure 7: Political empowerment in Romania in 2013-2018 period (own processing)

            Although the total population was constantly decreasing from 21.38 million in 2013 to 19.78 million in 2018, in Romania. It might be also observed a doubled productivity per capita from 11% in 2013 to 23.31% in 2018.

3.       RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

            In order to design a regression model we stat from negative hypothesis that:

·       H0: The woman political empowerment, in Romania, has no influence on Romanian GDP.

·       H1: The economic gender parity could increase GDP

Table 1: Linear Regression – Least square regression analysis

Regression Statistics

 

Multiple R

0.999

 

R Square

0.998

 

Standard Error

0

 

Observations

5

 

ANOVA

 

 

 

 

 

df

SS

MS

Significance F

Regression

4

66.29679

16.5742

0.00009

Residual

0

0

65535

 

Total

4

66.29679

 

 

 

 

Coefficients

Standard Error

P-value

Lower 95%

Upper 95%

Intercept

-111.742

0

0.00004

-111.742

-111.742

Overall population sex ratio (male/female)

99.74197

0

0.00007

99.74197

99.74197

Woman in parliament

171.1939

0

0.005

171.1939

171.1939

Woman in ministerial positions

-117.333

0

0.0006

-117.333

-117.333

Political empowerment

205.4573

0

0.009

205.4573

205.4573

             

            The aim of the research methodology is to design a regression model that can weigh the importance of woman political empowerment.

            The R2 coefficient of this model is 0.999, indicating that 99% of the variable GDP variance is determined by the variation of causal variables and only 0.1% of this influence cannot be explained by the model. As R2 takes values closer to 1, the regression model better adjusts the data in the sample. In this case, the value of 0.998 demonstrates the validity of the model, which means that the variables Overall population sex ratio (male/female), Woman in parliament and Woman in ministerial positions and political empowerment influence GDP (Table 1).

            Also, the adjusted value of R2 (0.998) is close to the value of R2, which proves that the influence of the independent variables (Overall population sex ratio, Woman in parliament and Woman in ministerial positions and political empowerment) is significant to explain variance of the dependent variable (GDP).

            The T test for each variable generated validates the  model and contributes to the predictive power of regression. The Prob the significance !??? threshold of the variables should be less or around 0.05. In our model Prob (p-value<0.01)???!!!, meaning that the model estimates very well the variable coefficients. 

            Significance F is<0.01, meaning that H0 (negative hypothesis) has to be rejected, and H1 has to be accepted. This means that economic gender parity increases GDP. This conclusion is supported by the evolution of GDP in Romania in 2013-2018 period, when the gender gap was reduced (Fig. 8).

            The model’s regression equation is:

GDP = 99.74 Sex ratio + 171.19 Woman in parliament - 171.33 Woman in ministerial positions + 205.45 political empowerment -111.74 + ε

Figure 8: Romania’s Key economic indicators on 2013-2018 period

4.            RESEARCH FINDINGS

            The main explanation for the statement that economic gender parity could increase GDP is that Emotional Intelligence, which is rather met by woman. This characteristic seems to be more important than in the last periods. People have not to be seen as machines of increasing GDP. Good leaders have a very high emotional intelligence, trying to put themselves in the stewardship/mind of people they are leading.

            They understand that each person has a specific personality, with unique perceptions and opinions of the world and each person had different formative experiences. Each person has to be treated different in order to meet their expectation. When a leader meets the expectation of his employees, he gets the cooperation and self-motivation of the employees in everything they enterprise. Leaders invest a lot of time to understand his employees’ personalities and try to see the world through their lenses.

            Good leaders have an acute self-awareness characteristic. They know very well which the influences and consequences of their feelings are over them and over another people performance. They know how to put the focus on their priorities and values. They know exactly which the target is and why is important to reach it. They are enemies of politics, infighting, and passive-aggressive behavior.

            Furthermore, the continued progression of woman into leadership roles is having a profound impact on the way we of running companies, and the attitudes of the millennial generation are accelerating progress toward a workforce that expects more emotionally enlightened leaders because they were raised to expect it. The bar ???!!! (exigence) is being raised, and EQ matters more today than it ever has before (RAKE, 2015).

            Good leaders are contagiously optimistic, even when they face difficulties, and are happy to see employees’ happiness, leading them to success. If the success is not coming right away, they have the ability to make the people patient while searching for a new solution. They are open-minded and eager lifelong learners, looking for challenges that empower them with new skills, capacities, knowledge and innovation. They seem to be servant leaders to their employees, committed to help them reach own goals in the interest of both company and employees.

            Intelligent emotional leader has the capacity and courage to deal with employees’ feelings, taking principle-based decisions and showing integrity and strong character. The same treatment is developed in the relationships with teammates, customers, stakeholders, and partners. They have a very flexible communication with strong principle, adapting it to the audience need and situation, tracking   win-win solutions, into situations that might seems unsolvable.

            Intelligent emotional leaders brings solid advantages for companies, because they become a model for employees and attract intelligent, creative and positive people in their team. The employees are inspired by such as leaders them and love to help them on their way to success. This is the reason for what emotional intelligence (EQ) is so important nowadays, more than ever before. Women leaders have a higher EQ.

            Men and women have to work together for common progress and economic sustainability (SHINBROT, 2019). The society has to promote and develop educational, occupational, and economic contexts to rise women leaders, as to form women group leaders. Women incline the balance to equilibrium, equity, equality. Thus, the entire society will be the beneficiary of women leadership style, bringing socio-economic equilibrium and increasing the GDP, as our regression model shows.

5.       CONCLUSIONS:

            The least square regression analysis demonstrates that gender parity in Romania could increase the GDP, being a good solution for challenges that are facing the Romanian economy.

            It seems that the woman political empowerment would bring a socio-economic equilibrium, especially due to the high emotional intelligence of the women-leaders. Gender distribution is, therefore, recommend not only at the statistical level, but also at the organizational levels, even if in the long run female tend to occupy the company's administrative and management positions, being preferred by top management.

            In the tumultuous conditions of politics nowadays EQ seems to matter more today than it ever has before.

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