Women’s Role in Business. New Survey by Grant Thornton International
Date of publication
13.03.2015According to the findings of the survey under which about 5500 top managers were interviewed in 35 countries of Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia, over the last decade there has been no significant increase of the share of women in the company management in the world from 19% in 2004 to 22% in 2014. At the same time in some countries a substantial deviation of this index from the global average figures was noticed.
In particular, in Japan only 8% top managers are women. That is the lowest figure of all the countries under survey. Not much better is the situation in Germany (14%) and India (15%). However, in Georgia, Poland and Latvia the representatives of the fair sex have got over one third of the top positions (36-38%).
And in the leading position is the Russian Federation. In this country 40% of the top management positions are occupied by women. The main reason for such success is believed to be the Soviet heritage – in the USSR the emphasis was made on sex equality for the opportunities, particularly in education, including technical education. “In the countries of Eastern Europe lots of female-students master mathematics and engineering, which is quite unusual for Great Britain, for example,” point out the experts.
The researchers paid attention to the relevant sectoral differentiation in the numbers of female leaders. So, the women are represented least of all in the management of companies engaged in the production and processing of minerals. But in the spheres of education, healthcare and hotel business they, on the contrary, vary from 33 to 41%. The authors presented quite notable statistics on the high-tech companies today where every fifth top manager is a woman.
While studying what positions are taken and what areas of activities are run by women in the companies the researchers found, in particular, that 27% of female leaders supervise the personnel services in their companies, 18% occupy the position of the chief financial executive, 14% manage the internal audit services. Much fewer women reach the top of their careers as the chief executive officers (CEO) or chief operating officers (СОО) - 9% respectively, as well as the IT service managers - 4%.
However, here the figures for Russia differ significantly from the global values, too. Specifically, FBK Grant Thornton that represented Russia on the list of 50 best companies for working women in the APEC countries, the index of women leadership turned out to be much higher. “Traditionally women have taken the key positions in our company management. Since 2002 we have been actively realizing the initiatives to promote women leadership. Today in our company 64% of our specialists and the majority of managers are women,” notes Elena Proskurnya, FBK Grant Thornton First Vice President.
You can find the results of the study here.
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