Although women been making strides in the workplace in the U.S., there's still a long way to go before we reach gender equality. But what's the state of the gender gap worldwide? B2B marketplace Expert Market has conducted new research on female representation in management around the globe in order to see how well the numbers actually stack up. The good news is that a number of countries are actually doing pretty well: Jamaica, for example, had the highest percentage of women in managerial positions of any country they studied, with women making up 59 percent of managers — more than half!
In order to paint as full a picture as possible, the company has assembled their data into a collection of maps which show what the gender gaps look like in each country — 126 of them total — with regards to female managers. Expert Market brand manager Michael Horrocks commented on the findings in a press release, saying, "It is promising to see that in a growing number of regions around the world, women are increasingly entering management positions and playing a more important role in business strategy."
Here's an overview of their findings:
As you can see from the map, South American and Caribbean nations are doing the best in terms of the gender gap in management. In fact, the top three countries, Jamaica, Colombia, and Saint Lucia, all come in at above 50 percent, meaning women make up the majority of managers in those countries. As to why Jamaica comes in at almost 60 percent, it's likely thanks to their government's intervention into sexism, with the formation of the country's National Policy on Gender Equality.
Expert America also put together a list of the top 10 countries who fared the best in terms of gender equality in management. South America has the greatest representation on the map; interestingly, though, no Western countries made the list.
As Expert Market pointed out in their press release, it is interesting to see so many Western nations being behind in this area — especially since there have been so many high profile campaigns in recent years to expand equality specifically in female leadership at work. "Whilst many high profile government and business officials in the U.S., Europe and Australia have been at the forefront of the campaign calling for gender equality at work, their neighbors in Central and South America have simply got on with it," they said. This may be a case of talking the talk without walking the walk. Many campaigns like #BanBossy, for example, are awareness-based and we all know that while awareness is great, we can't afford to not take action along with it.
The United States has a total of 42 percent of female managers though — which, while not a bad number, is still disproportionate. The "good old boys" club could be the reason that women are being held back, as women hold less than 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions and female representation in leadership gets worse as you move up the corporate ladder. Horrocks acknowledges the need for more inclusion in nations like the U.S.; indeed, we could probably all thing or two from the top performing nations: "Whilst businesses still have a long way to go in recruiting more women at board level," said Horrocks, "it is encouraging that countries in Central and South America have successfully redressed the balance already.”
Looking at the averages, women comprise about 30 to 40 percent of managerial positions across the globe. This is promising, but we still have a long way to go. I'm optimistic, though; the percentage is higher than I'd have guessed it to be. Let's keep making progress!
Images: Expert Market (4)
