The latest news on workplace equality and gender lens investment
Record-breaking assets for Equileap’s Index!
The Solactive Equileap Global Gender Equality 100 Leaders Index, which ranks 100 companies from around the world that score highly on gender equality in the workplace, has attracted a record amount of assets. The latest figure as of early September exceeds $1.6 billion.
“This is a major milestone for us and for the gender lens investing sector as a whole,” says Diana van Maasdijk, CEO of Equileap. “When we launched this index, it took some by surprise that apart from being an ESG index, the main focus would be gender equality. But this focus made social and financial sense as companies that are more gender equal also tend to perform better. As the chart below demonstrates, our index has had a consistent outperformance over the MSCI World Equal Weighted Index, particularly in the aftermath of the recent market downturn. Gender lens investing is not only becoming more mainstream, but it can also be a successful investment strategy."
One investment fund that tracks this index is the UBS Gender Equality UCITS ETF (ticker: GENDER), which launched in 2018 with $12m in AUM – it is currently the largest ETF in the world with a gender lens. It has also outperformed its benchmark annually by 3%.
To date, Equileap has developed 10 indexes in partnership with Solactive and Morningstar, all of which are replicated in funds and structured products by leading investment houses.
Report: Women make up just 4% of CEOs in Asia-Pacific region
Our latest report reveals uneven progress in terms of gender equality in the workplace across the APAC region. Overall, however, female representation is relatively low at senior levels, with just 4% women CEOs, 10% CFOs and 5% women chairing boards. Across the five developed markets that we studied – Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore – the average company score is just 33%.
There is also some good news, including:
80% of Australian companies have a flexible hours policy
Japan is tackling sexual harassment: 52% of companies have an anti-sexual harassment policy, the highest in the region
Hong Kong has one company, China Gas Holdings Ltd, that has closed its gender pay gap at all levels – the only company to do so both in APAC and globally
Podcast: How money can close the gender gap in the workplace
Our CEO Diana van Maasdijk spoke to the Future Ready podcast about the moment, early on in her career, when she realized that gender equality could be challenged not just through laws and changing attitudes but also through financial services.
“When I looked at ESG investing, I realised no one was talking about gender equality.”
However, her idea of collecting the missing data and using it as a basis for investment was not welcomed by her former employer. Diana had to battle scepticism and rejection over many years to get people to take gender-smart investing seriously.
Diana’s mission to gather and sell that missing data has led to her founding a social enterprise and channelling billions of dollars of investors’ money into companies that are striving towards gender equality.
Listen to the episode, How can money close the workplace gender gap?, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
In the spotlight: Mirvac
In our 2022 global report and ranking, Mirvac achieved a score of 79% for gender equality at work, an increase of 5 percentage points from the 2021 report. This jump means the Australian property developer has the number one spot, both globally and in the Asia-Pacific region.
What makes Mirvac stand out?
It has achieved gender balance at the board, senior management and workforce levels, and came close at the executive level
Mirvac discloses its gender pay gap and strategy to close it
It offers 20 paid weeks of primary carer leave and four paid weeks of secondary carer leave, as well as flexible work arrangements
It publishes seven out of the eight policies that Equileap looks for, only missing a supplier diversity programme that includes women-owned businesses at the time the report was researched (although the company has subsequently published this policy in 2022)
Mirvac board member Sam Mostyn was recently quoted in an article about the 2022 Australian jobs summit: “We have reached an important moment in time where the step changes required to take advantage of the available women’s workforce to help drive the economy is now understood. It’s shifted from women’s issues to key economic opportunities.”
Diana will join a line-up of leading industry speakers to discuss what lessons investors can learn from the recent past, what’s happening right now and a peek around the corner.
The tech and construction industries were the biggest culprits for reports of sexual harassment, according to a survey of 6,000 working adults by Randstad.
USA - The US economy has recovered all 22 million jobs lost in the pandemic but with a key disparity, men recouped all 10 million of the vanished jobs but women who lost 11.9 million positions are still 100,000 shy of their pre-COVID mark.
UK - Women should play a central role in the UK’s economic recovery, with evidence revealing companies with more female leaders outperform those dominated by men, according to House of Commons research.