More men named John run large companies than ALL women

Whilst many companies are striving towards gender equality and greater female representation in their workforce, the statistics on women undertaking key decision-making roles is still alarming.

In Australia, whilst women make up 51% of the workforce, women only make up 19% of CEOs, taking up 33% of key management positions and 33% of Board Chairs, highlighting the disparity with men.  

Globally, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the percentage of women taking up leadership and senior roles has increased over the past five years (2017-2022) from a low base. The share of women taking up leadership roles in 2022 amounted to 31%, however, this average varies by industry. Based on the graph below, in 2022 only select industries depict levels near gender parity in leadership, such as Non-Governmental and Membership Organizations (47%), Education (46%), and Personal Services and Wellbeing (45%), primarily due to women already being highly represented in these sectors. On the other hand, industries with lower levels of women representation in the overall industry indicated that more men compared to women were hired into leadership positions. Sectors depicting a lower percentage of women at higher leadership levels included Energy (20%), Manufacturing (19%) and Infrastructure (16%).

Moreover, according to the World Economic Forum, compared to 2016, a significant improvement and increase in the hiring of women into leadership positions is witnessed in the industries of Technology, Agriculture, Energy, Supply chain and transportation, Manufacturing, and infrastructure.

The case for greater gender parity in leadership is supported by greater economic benefits and a positive impact on a company’s bottom line. For example, it was found that having more women in leadership positions across the UK’s FTSE 350 index would lead to £900 million in pre-tax profit on average for each FTSE 350 company, whilst also resulting in a 2.5% increase in GDP to the UK’s economy.

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Giles Gunesekera