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Leading companies are failing to capitalize on the talents of women in the workforce, according to the World Economic Forum’s Corporate Gender Gap Report 2010. It is the first study to cover the world’s largest employers in 20 countries and benchmark them against the gender equality policies that most companies should have in place but are, in fact, widely missing.

The report is co-authored by Herminia Ibarra, Professor of Leadership and Learning and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at a leading international business school; and Saadia Zahidi, Director and Head of Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme, World Economic Forum.

The report is based on a survey of 600 heads of human resources at the world’s largest employers. The survey contained over 25 questions and assessed companies on the representation of women within their establishments and the use of gender-equality practices such as measurement and target setting, work-life balance policies and mentorship and training. The survey also asked respondents to identify the biggest barriers to women’s leadership and their opinion on the probable effects of the economic downturn on women’s employment in their countries and industries.

The countries surveyed were: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States .
The United States (52%), Spain (48%), Canada (46%) and Finland (44%) have the highest percentage of women employees at all levels among the responding companies. India is the country with the lowest percentage of women employees (23%), followed by Japan (24%), Turkey (26%) and Austria (29%).

At the industry level, the findings of the survey confirm that the services sector employs the greatest percentage of women employees. Within this sector, the financial services and insurance (60%), professional services (56%) and media and entertainment (42%) industries employ the greatest percentage of women. The sectors that display the lowest percentage of women in the 20 economies are automotive (18%), mining (18%) and agriculture (21%).

Female employees tend to be concentrated in entry or middle level positions and remain scarce in senior management or board positions in most countries and industries. A major exception to this trend is Norway, where the percentage of women among boards of directors is above 40% for the majority of respondents. This is due to a government regulation that mandates a minimum of 40% of each gender on the boards of public companies.

The average for women holding the CEO-level position was a little less than 5% among the 600 companies surveyed. Finland (13%), Norway (12%), Turkey (12%), Italy (11%) and Brazil (11%) have the highest percentage of women CEOs in this sample.

Although wage gaps between women and men are a universally recognized problem, 72% of the companies surveyed do not attempt to track salary gaps at all. However, a more positive revelation is that almost 40% of the companies surveyed claim to be setting specified targets, quotas or other affirmative policies to improve women’s participation in their structures.

The opinion-based portion of the survey gives insight into the perceived barriers to leadership and the effects of the economic crisis. The biggest barriers to women’s access to leadership positions identified by the respondents are “general norms and cultural practices in your country”, “masculine or patriarchal corporate culture” and “lack of role models.” The least important barriers are identified as “lack of adequate parental leave and benefits” and “inadequate labor laws and regulations in your country.”

Tags:
corporate, Corporate Gender Gap Report 2010, equality, gender gap, Herminia Ibarra, Saadia Zahidi, women, World Economic Forum