Initial Findings

Diving into the numbers is becoming interesting. I am surprised at some of the differences I am beginning to uncover between male and female diplomats. It is still to early to conclude anything from the data, and I am very eager to receive feedback from expert advisors at HKS in order to devise a proper data analysis strategy, but I would like to report on my initial review of the statistics. 

This time, I will be concentrating on the promotion process. The Foreign Service strives to be a true meritocracy. Officers rise through the ranks by participating in promotion exams where they compete against their peers. Usually, the top 10-20% performers are promoted, depending on how many vacancies are available. The promotion exam has many parts. Officers receive scores according to their supervisor's and their own evaluations of their performance, their years of service, relevant academic qualifications they have acquired since their last promotion, and even points according to the degree of responsibility their specific job requires of them. These scores are then added to scores from a written and an oral exam whose purpose is to ensure their working knowledge and analytic skills are up to date. The process is quite grueling and it happens every one or two years. After looking at the data from promotion exams between 2002 and 2013, I was able to spot some interesting trends: 

• On average, women seem to receive higher scores on their evaluations in the area of academic preparation. They may be taking advantage of one of the best perks that FSOs are afforded: access to the Instituto Matías Romero's (IMR) virtual campus. The IMR is the institute in charge of training and continuing education for diplomats, and it offers all kinds of courses that are useful to them, including languages, negotiation, consular topics, international trade and finance, among many others. FSOs earn points for taking these courses, which are then counted in their promotion evaluations. The average woman scores slightly higher in academic preparation than the average man. However, when you break down the scores further, you can see that there are more men scoring at the highest levels. Considering that only the very best move up to the next rank during a promotion exam, there might be some cause for concern. 

Women score better on average, but more men achieve the highest score

• Another area in which FSOs receive scores is for the post they hold. If the job entails a higher responsibility, it is assigned more points, and vice versa. For example, FSOs that are the Head of Mission in a Consulate or Embassy, that is, they are the highest ranked officer in that office, receive higher scores than officers who perform supporting jobs. If they are posted at Headquarters, a higher responsibility job, such as an Undersecretary, will score higher than an officer in an advisory role. Since post assignments are assigned based on somewhat subjective decisions, it may be useful to look at the scores that FSOs receive in this area in order to see if there may be gender-based disadvantages for women. As we can see, women are more frequently seen in posts where they score 3, and less frequently represented in posts that earn them a 5 in comparison to men. This may be an area that the Ministry could look at if they wish to increase the representation on women in the higher ranks of diplomacy: assign them to higher responsibility posts!

We need more 5's!

There is much more to say about the stories the numbers are telling us, and I will do so in upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

Data!

Last week I was hard at work collecting data. This is every bit as unsexy as it sounds! I am putting together a database that can quantitatively track the career paths of all active Foreign Service Officers (FSO). With this information, I will hopefully be able to identify some patterns in the entry, promotion, and exit of FSOs as well as spot some differences between the carreer tracks of male and female FSOs. Putting together this dataset is very important but it is also time consuming! A lot of the information is only available on print archives and digitalization takes time and patience. 

Some days Excel is all I do!

Another task I have been focused on this week has been interviewing FSOs from all different ranks. The purpose of the interviews is to enrich the data by adding explanations that may be hard to quantify. There are many things numbers cannot tell us. Sure, we may know an officer was transferred to Paris or Nairobi at any point in time, but how can we tell how she felt about it? Can we tell if she had a mentor that suggested she accept the move? Can we numerically assess the impact on her family life? Given the importance of many of these difficult-to-measure factors on the wellbeing of a particular FSO, the interviews are crucial.

I have interviewed almost a dozen FSOs and relevant actors. There are many insights that I have acquired,but I came out with one comforting main takeaway from the many conversations I had this week. From Third Secretaries to Ambassadors, their unique stories converge into the conclusion that even though a career in diplomacy is very demanding, difficult, and full of obstacles, the balance in the end is positive. They are happy to be doing a job where they are constantly learning, negotiating, thinking, and best of all, proudly representing their country.

As for me, I feel lucky that I have been able to speak with such accomplished, strong, professional women. They are sometimes faced with difficult odds, they are forced to swim against the tide, but despite all that, they have become one of the best faces Mexico has to show to the World. I hope we can have more and more of them representing us in the future.