Several years back, Conrad Liveris found there were more Peters, Johns and Davids in chief executive and chair positions of ASX 200 companies than women. He got people’s attention.
On the eve of World Women’s Day, Mr Liveris released his latest annual Gender Equality at Work report, examining gender differences at the top and pay gaps. He has found there are now more Andrews leading ASX 200 organisations as CEOs than there are women.
On a serious note, he says there has been progress, with female representation on ASX 200 boards at its highest ever rate of 26.6 per cent and the number of companies with female chief financial officers now at 20, compared with eight CFOs two years ago.
However, he found that women still run the bulk of support functions, holding 70 per cent of HR executive roles and 46 per cent of general counsel positions – while men hold 90 per cent of business unit roles.
With help from the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we present some more facts about women:
- 50.2 per cent of the Australian population are females
- 38.1 is the median age of females at June 2016, compared with 36.4 for men
- 46 per cent of all employees in Australia are women
- $283 is the weekly pay gap between female and male employees (full-time adult ordinary time earnings)
- 18 per cent is the national gender pay gap. It has been stuck between 15 and 18 per cent for the past two decades
- 66 days is the average that Australian woman have to work each year to earn the same pay as the average man
- $112,600 was the average retirement payout for women in 2009-10, compared with $198,000 for men
- 92 per cent of primary carers for children with disabilities were women; 70 per cent of primary carers for parents were women, and 52 per cent of primary carers for partners were women
- 24th is where we sit on a global index measuring gender equality in 2013 – down from 15th in 2006
- 217 years for the world to achieve gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum
- 25 per cent of women were sexually harassed in the workplace between 2007 and 2012.
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