Women Continue to Face Inequality at Work

Despite the most recent improvements for increasing the number of female representatives on company boards, research reveals that women are still facing inequality in the workplace today.

Not only are women less likely to progress within their careers, but the gender pay gap continues to make salaries unfair across a number of industries and sectors. The latest percentage data on female board members is eye-opening to just how biased global companies are when it comes to hiring and management.

Which Countries are the Least Sexist?

Norway is flying the flag for women’s rights and ‘The Norway Model of Boardroom Quotas’ is something that other countries can learn from, with many already making an effort to do so. In Norwegian companies, almost 40% of boardroom seats are now taken by women and their hiring model is a fine example of how quotas can be effective in any industry.

According to a new global index from Catalyst, other countries that have a high number of female board members include Finland, France, Sweden and Belgium. The UK ranks only fifth in the chart whilst the U.S comes in at eleventh. These are two major global powers within the western world that are surprisingly behind when it comes to equality and diversity in business.

The Catalyst data also tell us that the worst countries for gender equality are Japan, Portugal, India, Hong Kong, Ireland and Austria. With Japan’s boards having only 3.1% female representation, Portugal’s boards with less than 8% female board members, and India with just 9.5%.

Closing the Gender Pay Gap

According to UK job board, Adzuna, the least sexist industry is the Tech industry. This is based on data compiled from job listings on the website, analysing ads with the most/least gender-biased language.

However, the Adzuna research does not takes into account pay and salary, and there is still currently a huge 18% pay gap between male and female workers across the UK. The gender pay gap continues to be a problem worldwide also – and even though the Tech industry appears to be the least sexist sector, salaries continue to differ between women and their male counterparts.

This infographic below shows a strong correlation between job satisfaction and pay within the Tech sector.

(Image source: ecardshack.com)

It is clear from this infographic above that job satisfaction can directly be affected by initial pay as well as wage reviews and pay rises throughout one’s career. And with women finding it harder to progress than their male equivalents (not just in the Tech industry but across all industry sectors), it’s important for global leaders to take responsibility with closing the pay gap.

According to Catalyst President & Chief, Deborah Gillis, closing the gender gap in boardrooms continues to be a battle despite proof that the Norway model works. She said: “We have evidence and optimism that closing the gender gap on corporate boards is possible, yet the current number are not good enough”.

The UK decided against the original quote as adopted by Norway and decided to settle for a target of 25% for FTSE 100 companies. But with research suggesting that the gender pay gap could take as long as 70 years to be closed, efforts like this are simply not sufficient.