年长女性仍可驰骋职场

If women are so far ahead of men, why are they so far behind? Reports from both sides of the Atlantic show that female students dominate university courses, yet women still do not make it to the top.
既然女人远比男人优秀，为什么她们落后男人那么多？来自大西洋两岸的报告均表明，尽管女生在大学课堂上占尽优势，但女人依旧没有攀上顶尖位置。
　　
A report on inequality in the UK said last week that girls had better educational results than boys at 16, went to university in greater numbers and achieved better degrees once they got there. “More women now have higher education qualifications than men in every age group up to age 44,” the report said.
英国上周发表的一份有关两性差异的报告称，女生在16岁时的学习成绩优于男生；考上大学的人数多于男生；在大学取得的学位也好于男生。报告称：“在45岁前的各个年龄组，拥有高等教育学历的女性都多于男性。”
　　
In the US, 57 per cent of college graduates in 2006-07 were women. Women form the majority of all graduates under 45.
在美国，2006-07届大学毕业生中，57%是女性。在低于45岁的所有大学毕业生中，女性也占大部分。
　　
Yet few women make it to the boards of companies in either country. In the UK, the proportion of women on FTSE 100 boards rose fractionally from 11.7 per cent to 12.2 per cent last year, according to the Cranfield University School of Management, but that was only because of a fall in the size of the boards.
然而，不管在哪个国家，成功跻身公司董事会的女性都属凤毛麟角。在英国，据克兰菲尔德管理学院表示，去年在富时100指数成分股公司中，女性在董事会所占的比例从11.7%微升至12.2%。但究其原因，完全是因为董事会规模有所缩小。
　　
In the US, women accounted for 15.2 per cent of board seats on Fortune 500 companies, according to Catalyst, the research organisation, which said the numbers had barely budged for five years.
在美国，据研究机构Catalyst的数据，在“财富500强”企业中，只有15.2%的董事是女性。该机构还表示，这一比例5年来几乎毫无变化。
　　
The hopeful way of looking at this is that the rising generation of female graduates has yet to reach director age. Give it 10 years and they will dominate boards as they do universities.
对此，一种乐观的想法是，“新生代”的女性大学毕业生尚未达到当董事的年龄。再过10年，她们就将会成为董事会中的多数，像在大学里一样。
　　
If that were true, however, we would surely see the number of women director numbers moving up by now. The first year that women college graduates outnumbered men in the US was 1982. These graduates must be entering their 50s – prime director age.
然而，如果真的是这样，我们现在就应当看到，女性董事的人数在逐渐增多。在美国，女性大学毕业生人数超过男性，最早是在1982年。这批大学毕业生现在即将跨入50岁门槛——这正是当董事的黄金年龄。
　　
There is evidence that the younger generation of women is thriving in the workplace. A recent report from the Pew Research Center found that the earnings of US-born 30- to 44-year old women grew 44 per cent between 1970 and 2007, compared with a rise of only 6 per cent for men. In this age group, 22 per cent of wives earned more than their husbands in 2007, compared with 4 per cent in 1970.
有迹象显示，年轻一代的女性在职场上很吃得开。佩尤研究中心在近期一份报告中指出，在1970至2007年间，美国出生的30-44岁女性的薪酬增长了44%；相比之下，男性薪酬仅增长6%。就这个年龄组而言，在2007年，22%的女性薪酬高于她们的丈夫；而在1970年，这一比例只有4%。
　　
Yet, even for this cohort, there was still a large pay gap, the Pew research found, with women earning on average only 71 per cent of what men earned.
然而，即使是在这个年龄组，两性之间也存在巨大的薪酬差距：女性薪酬平均只有男性的71%。