Despite recognizing the value of female leaders, Asian companies are slow to bridge the gender gap, with new data showing men still hold at least 80 per cent of the top jobs in the region.
New data from
Hays shows men occupy 89 percent of top roles in Hong Kong, while Malaysia has the highest percentage of female leaders – though that’s just 24 percent.
The annual study is based on a survey of workers across industries in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.
Lynne Roeder, managing director of Hays Singapore, says last year, men held 79 percent of top jobs and 67 percent of line manager roles.
“There is no real improvement in female representation in leadership roles,” Roeder said.
However, more businesses were recognising the value of greater gender diversity, with the study finding the bulk of both male and female respondents:
• believe greater gender diversity contributes to business success,
• support more sharing of family responsibilities to help address equality in the workplace,
• describe access to flexible work options as important to them,
• concede women face barriers to career success due to gender,
• agree their organisation has some gender diversity issues to address.
All Hong Kong survey respondents said greater gender diversity had a positive impact on business, while the other countries had single digit percentages of respondents who didn’t see a positive impact.
Asked what would benefit most from increasing gender diversity, male and female respondents in China, Malaysia and Singapore said company culture, while in Hong Kong, both genders said a company’s reputation, and in Japan, respondents said recruitment of the best talent.
Roeder said organisations should take another look at whether their hiring and promotion of high-potential employees was skewed towards men.
“The best person for the role should get the job but too often, companies struggle to see past their own unconscious bias to identify high quality female talent.
“We also need to ensure our work cultures enable women of ability to put their hand up for added responsibilities and promotion without being viewed as pushy.”
Other results include:
• 51 percent of women and 46 percent of men agree that women face barriers to career success due to their gender
• 28 percent of women and 24 percent of men are not at all confident their manager understands their ambitions
• More men than women (20 per cent versus 17 per cent) say their organisation “very much” has gender diversity issues to address
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