It’s International Women’s Day today and while there’s a lot to celebrate, results from a recent survey show workplace gender gaps remain in career progression, pay and flexible working options.
The survey, by recruiting experts Hays, also suggests that de-gendering gender diversity by offering and accepting equal parental leave and flexible working options without career consequences for women and men could improve female representation in the workplace: 81% of respondents said shared parental leave and child rearing responsibility would help break down unconscious biases and improve gender diversity.
Yet just 19% said their organisation offers parental leave for male employees on equal terms to female employees. In addition, the majority say men in their organisation rarely take (27%) or only take some (46%) of the parental leave they’re entitled to.
Why? 61% of men said it’s due to the financial impact whereas 42% of women said it’s because they may be viewed as less committed to their career.
Other findings include:
Career progression
- 93% of women and 63% of men think women encounter barriers in their career progression,
- 35% of men and 14% of women think that equal career opportunities are open to them regardless of gender,
- 23% of female respondents said their last promotion was more than five years ago compared to 17% of male respondents,
- 80% of respondents said the most senior person in their organisation was male,
- 61% said their manager was male,
- 38% said their working team is mostly female, 34% said mostly men and 28% had a balanced team,
- 65% of men compared to 47% of women believe they have the opportunity in their current role to sufficiently promote themselves and communicate ambitions,
- 38% of women compared to 22% of men are not confident that their line manager knows what their ambitions are,
- 28% of females are dissatisfied with their current seniority level, compared to 11% of males, and
- 58% of those dissatisfied females said it was because they are limited in opportunities to progress by their current employer.
Pay and rewards
- 58% of men and 19% of women think they are paid in an equal manner regardless of gender, and
- 86% of female respondents compared to 48% of men thought women encounter barriers outside of their control in regards to getting paid in an equal manner to men.
Flexible working options
- 51% of all respondents said flexible working options were available to them in their current organisation,
- 44% believe that, to some degree, flexible working options have improved the representation of women in executive and leadership roles,
- 96% of female respondents thought it was important that agile and flexible working options are available to them in their organisation, compared to 86% of men,
- more than 80% believe shared parental leave and child rearing responsibility would break down unconscious biases and improve gender diversity,
- just 19% said their organisation offers parental leave for male employees on equal terms to female employees,
- the majority said men in their organisation rarely take (27%) or take only some (46%) of their entitled parental leave, and
- 61% of men said this is due to financial impact whereas 42% of women said it’s because they may be viewed as less committed to their career.
Hays surveyed 842 Australians, of whom 52% were female and 48% were male.
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