The latest news on workplace equality and gender lens investment
Gender-lens funds continue to grow!
Research shows that closing racial and gender gaps would raise global GDP - gender-lens investing is one way of supporting this transition by rewarding companies that perform well compared to their peers in terms of gender equality in the workplace. This focus is extremely important given the COVID-19 crisis is still present and women continue to bear the brunt of inequalities - whether it’s their earnings, the operation of their jobs and businesses, family care, or their own safety at home.
But there is also good news: assets in gender-lens funds grew substantially in 2021. Equity funds rose so far this year to 30 September by 35% to $3.56 billion, while fixed income assets increased by 74% in the same period to $8.41 bn, according to Parallel Finance’s latest Gender Lens Investing Q3 2021 Review. The report also highlighted a smaller but growing number of diversity, equity and inclusion-focused funds that invest in companies with “robust and disclosed” DEI policies, and they have assets of $170m. Meanwhile, the UN has advocated for the first sovereign gender bond, and the UBS Global Gender Equality UCITS ETF (GENDER), which tracks the Equileap Global Gender Equality 100 Leaders index, has risen from USD $12 million in 2018 to almost $1 billion today.
The report authors also call for an “investment-in-women” criterion to be included into country gender equality metrics, alongside women’s economic participation and businesses’ climate scores. It would look at “metrics around the environment for, presence of, and sovereign support for investing in women” and include private and public company data and local regulations.
Equileap expands gender pay gap and gender balance data
As companies disclose more data and become more transparent over time, we are able to provide a more granular analysis of the gender pay gap and female representation - at every level.
Previously, we analysed gender balance across four levels (supervisory board, executive team, senior management, workforce). But middle management is also extremely important to get a fuller picture of where women hold, or don’t hold, positions of power and influence.
As of next month we will expand our dataset for our clients and reports to include the percentage of women within middle management, as well as the gender of a company’s chair, the CEO and CFO. We will also provide a more comprehensive breakdown of the gender pay gap numbers, specifying the mean/median, as well as adjusted and unadjusted numbers.
Country focus: the Netherlands
The top 100 public companies in the Netherlands have made progress in terms of gender equality since 2020, with average Equileap scores rising from 37% in 2020 to 43% this year. According to our second annual report, Gender Equality in the Netherlands, a score of 60% would have guaranteed a company a top five ranking in 2020, whereas this year it doesn’t even result in a place in the top 10.
However, there is a lot of room for improvement. No company has closed its overall gender pay gap, and only one company has achieved gender balance across the entire workforce. Our deep dive into supply chains found very little progress in terms of ensuring diversity and protection of female employees.
The IQ Engender Equality ETF (EQUL), the IQ Cleaner Transport ETF (CLNR), and the IQ Clean Oceans ETF (OCEN) have been launched by New York Life’s ETF solutions provider company, IndexIQ. EQUL uses data from Equileap and will donate part of its management fees to Girls Who Code, an organisation that helps women get into tech.
The asset manager has denied reports that its push to improve its diversity has resulted in a recruitment policy against white men. The company is aiming to triple the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people in senior roles by 2023 and will lower bonuses for execs who do not hit these targets.