A radical change in norms and behaviour within the workplace was required to address leadership gender inequity, according to the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (Finsia).
Finsia was responding to yesterday’s release of the 2010 Australian Census of Women in Leadership report by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, which revealed that women hold only 8.4 per cent of board positions and 8 per cent of executive key management personnel positions in the ASX 200 companies. It also showed that there are just six female chief executive officers and five female chairpersons.
Finsia stated that according to its own research over the last two years, while there has been an increase in labour force participation rates of women in Australia over the last 30 years, leadership participation rates in the financial services industry have been in decline.
Finsia stated it was attempting to address this issue through its Bridging the gender divide in the financial services industry policy campaign initiative, which included examining the social and cultural issues contributing to the lack of women in leadership positions in the industry and highlighting the attitudinal and systematic barriers that have “perpetuated” the gender divide.
Finsia chief executive Martin Fahy said it was “extremely disappointing” that many women were still “overlooked, underpaid and severely under-represented at executive level”.
“The fact is, despite the level of focus on this issue over the last two years and the recent introduction of the ASX Corporate Governance Principles, only one Australian company is close to achieving equal numbers of men and women at both board and executive management level,” he said. “Whether this comes down to ignorance or just plain old complacency is unclear. What is clear however is that women face residual prejudices throughout their career cycle, no more so than when trying to advance into leadership roles.
“What’s required is a radical change in norms and behaviours within our workplaces, to close the gap between policy, practice and attitudes.”
