While there are about 12 male board directors to every woman board director, when women finally make it onto the boards of Australia’s top 200 companies they appear to be punching above their weight according to a research report released today by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA). However, women executive managers in the same companies are faring badly compared to their male colleagues.
Pay, Power and Position: Beyond the 2008 EOWA Australian Census of Women in Leadership shows that despite their low overall representation at board director level, once appointed women appear to be at least as influential as their male counterparts. The research shows that among the 89 individual women holding board seats, nearly half chair at least one board committee while only a third of the 1091 men holding board seats chair at least one committee.
EOWA’s research also shows that women are just as likely as men to chair the most influential board committees such as audit, remuneration and governance committees.
However, at the executive manager level, women are being funnelled into support roles and remain underrepresented in key leadership positions. Women hold only 7% of key management personnel positions, those positions designated by a company in its annual report as having the most authority and responsibility for planning, directing and controlling activities of the business. Women are more likely to hold positions that have a low likelihood of being key management personnel such as human resources and public affairs.
Acting EOWA Director, Mairi Steele, says “This report adds to EOWA’s Census of Women in Leadership and to our understanding of why women are so under represented in senior leadership roles in Australian businesses. Sadly, regardless of which way you look at the data, women are still disadvantaged and their skills are being underutilised”.
“The EOWA report shows that it’s not just about the absolute or relative numbers of women on boards, or at executive manager level, it’s also about the pay, power and position of women compared to their male colleagues.”
While the data shows that women board directors are more likely to have gender pay parity with male board members, most likely due to fixed remuneration, the pay gap for women key management personnel is on average 28.3%, 11% higher than the national average gender pay gap in February.
Female key management personnel in support roles earn 37.4% less than their male equivalents and those in line management positions earn 10.4% less than the male equivalent. Women in CEO and finance positions earn less than half of their male equivalents and even in occupational categories that are female dominated, such as legal and human resources, women’s median salaries are still less than men’s.
The EOWA report, to be released today by the Minister for Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek at a women’s leadership conference in Canberra, examines the pay, power and status of women in senior leadership roles in Australia’s Top 200 companies. The report is based on research conducted by Macquarie University as part of the EOWA 2008 Australian Census of Women in Leadership.
For more information visit the website http://www.eowa.gov.au/
Source: EOWA
