This research explores what motivates managers of news outlets around the world to promote gender equality in the workplace. It also explores the strategies that managers use to implement their commitment to gender equality and the results of these efforts.

The research findings show that there is a wide range of motivations for media managers to promote gender equality in the workplace. The main argument used is the fact that the managers believe in gender equality and want to set an example to promote gender equality in society. Furthermore, business motives and personal reasons play a role.

A majority of the managers primarily look at gender equality from a content point of view. They want to cover a wider range of stories, including topics relevant for women. Other strategies used by managers heavily focused on recruitment practices and, to a lesser extent, on creating a favourable working environment.

As a result of these strategies, managers mostly observed a change in the content that was produced by their media outlets, including an increase of women’s voices and diversity of topics covered by the outlet. Furthermore, the working environment of some of the media outlets improved. Only two of the managers interviewed said that promoting gender equality in their organisation had made them more competitive.

Author: Anna Gorter

Supervisor: Saskia Nijhof