Closing the gap: Gender Lens investing and the future of finance
Executive Summary
The top five companies for gender equality this year are Australian property developer Mirvac with a score of 79%, followed by Diageo (UK), Medibank (Australia), and Allianz (Germany), all scoring 75%, and UBS (Switzerland) with a score of 74%.
The global average score covering 3,787 companies has increased from 34% in 2021 and 37% in 2022 to 41% this year. While still far from full points, this substantial rise reflects the generally improved disclosure that Equileap is seeing across companies globally, not only among top performers.
Women in top leadership positions are still very rare. A minority of 6% of companies globally have a female CEO, 15% have a female CFO, and 8% have a female chair of the board. Looking at representation from the top down, women represent 28% of board members, 20% of executives, 26% of senior management, and 38% of the total workforce. Gender balance across a company is rare, with only 18 companies globally achieving 40-60% of women at all levels (board, executive, management, and workforce). In some markets, the glass ceiling between the workforce and executive positions remains pervasive, most notably in Hong Kong and Switzerland.
Only 22% of companies globally publish their gender pay gap (up from 17% in 2022 and 15% in 2021), and less than 1% of companies in the world have closed the gender pay gap (i.e. published a mean, unadjusted gender pay gap +/-3% or less, overall or in all pay bands). Transparency is one step towards closing the pay gap, and disparities in transparency between countries remain huge: 98% of Spanish companies publish their gender pay data, compared to only 12% of U.S. companies.
The number of companies with an anti-sexual harassment policy is up to 60%, compared with 53% in 2022 and 49% in 2021. We are seeing increased transparency across all regions, but countries that are leading the way are Spain, Italy, France, and Canada.
In terms of paid parental leave, gender-neutral policies encouraging and enabling fathers to take more leave are becoming more commonplace. The number of companies offering equal leave to both parents has more than doubled from last year (322 in 2023 compared to 180 in 2022). At a national level, the Netherlands and Finland both increased the duration of and rate of pay for joint parental leave, and Japan introduced leave earmarked for fathers to encourage takeup. In countries with limited or no statutory leave, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S., some companies are stepping up to offer more generous parental leave than required by law. Abrdn continues to lead the way, offering 9 months of fully paid parental leave to all parents.
The financial sector is now the second-best performing sector and performs especially well on transparency and disclosures – it increased its average score from 35% in 2021 and 38% in 2022 to 44% in 2023. The technology sector, on the other hand, has been outpaced by others, and is now the lowest performing sector – it increased its average score from 31% in 2021 and 36% in 2022 to 39% in 2023.
We continue to see companies in countries with strong legislation on gender equality performing better.
The best markets for corporate gender equality are France, Spain, Italy, Norway, the UK, and Australia; in contrast, the U.S., Japan, and Hong Kong have the lowest average scores globally.