Women under-represented and underpaid in financial services
The financial and insurance services has an even balance of women in its workforce compared with the national average but still lags behind in the number of women holding senior management and executive roles, particularly in the investment part of the sector.
While women make up 56.1 per cent of the workforce of the financial and insurance services sector they only represent 25 to 45 per cent of those in chief executive, senior management and general management roles.
Women are most poorly represented in these roles in the area of ‘financial asset investing' as defined by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) which has released comprehensive statistics about gender balance in the Australian workforce.
Under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, non-public sector employers with 100 or more staff must report each year to the WGEA against a range of gender equality indicators with the first set of data covering more than 11,000 employers and approximately four million employees or about one third of Australia's workforce.
While the data did not specifically list the area of financial planning and advice the areas of superannuation, life insurance and asset investing were examined. Both superannuation and life insurance had more women employed in those sectors than men but most of the roles for women were in clerical and administrative work where women represented around 73 per cent of the workforce. Women held around 45 per cent or roles in the asset investing sector but once again most of these were in clerical, administration and sales roles.
At more senior levels no women were reported to be a chief executive or head of business in the life insurance and asset investing sectors while women held only six per cent of those roles in superannuation sector.
Across financial services the gender pay gap has resulted in women's pay lagging that of men by 36.1 per cent for total remuneration. These figures were smaller in the areas of superannuation and life insurance with women's pay lagging men by 30.9 per cent and 20.7 per cent, respectively, for total remuneration, however the figure opened up in the asset investing area where women's pay lagged men's by 45.5 per cent.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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