Assessing 255 leading companies
on workplace equality
While there is much room for improvement in the gender equality performance of companies across European indices, a combination of corporate initiative and good legislation has led to strong overall performance both in the region and relative to global results.
An overarching finding of this study is that legislation requiring companies to meet targets and to publish gender-related data seems to have a great impact on company performance. Companies in countries where there are quotas for women on boards and statutory paid parental leave that meets international standards tend to score the highest. French companies dominate the ranking, occupying eight positions in the Top 10. This reflects a quota of 40% female directors, which has been in place since 2011, and a paid parental leave policy for both primary and secondary carer leave.
Another important finding is that there is a lack of transparency when it comes to a crucial gender equality issue – closing the gender pay gap.
- 72% of the companies have not disclosed gender segregated pay information.
- Spain and Italy defy this trend, as 74% of companies in the Spanish IBEX 35 index and 58% of companies in the Italian FTSE MIB 40 index publish gender pay data, outperforming all other country indices in this research.
- Enel (Italy), Iberdrola (Spain) and Red Eléctrica (Spain) are the only companies with no pay gap (i.e. published an overall mean gender pay gap of less than 3%).
When it comes to gender balance, European companies have room for improvement across all levels. However, it is at the executive and senior management level that women are most underrepresented. European women, on average, account for 31% of board members, 16% of executive officers, 25% of senior management and 38% of the workforce.
OTHER KEY FINDINGS
- The best performing company is L’Oréal (France), with a gender equality score of 73%
- The top-performing sector is Communications, with an average score of 50%, outperforming the global average for the same sector (30%).
- 16% of the companies (40) have signed the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs).