By Pat Magadla – Senior Account and Business Development Manager at Old Mutual Investment Group

In a recently published article, the World Economic Forum poses a question “Companies say diversity matters - so why aren’t they becoming more diverse?”.  An interesting question to ponder as the 2022 Global Gender Report concludes that gender parity is not recovering, and it will take another 132 years to close the global gender gap. It continues that due to the compounding of crises, women’s workforce outcomes are suffering and there is a risk of global gender parity backsliding further!

When ranked lowest to highest for their gender gap, South Africa shows up very well at number 20, with Iceland at number one and Afghanistan at 146.

The same report states that women’s share of senior and leadership roles has seen a steady global increase since 2016, and in 2022, global gender parity for this category reached 42.7%, the highest gender parity score yet. However, taking a closer look into the financial services industry, the WEF reports that only 30% of leadership positions are filled by women. This makes sense when we consider that the number of women hired into leadership since 2016 has remained in the 33% to 36% range.

According to Deloitte, the proportion of women in leadership roles within financial services firms in South Africa was 24% and is projected to grow to 28% by 2030. The South African number is not only below parity, but below the global average.

This is despite the Quarterly Labour Force Survey published by Statistics South Africa showing a significant increase in the number of women employed in Finance, when compared to their male counterparts. The number of women rose by 7.8% year on year to 1,0 million, whilst men rose by 1.4% to 1.4 million, for a total 4% increase year on year with Finance once again being the leading sector in formal employment. Yet, research shows that both locally and internationally, more women qualify from universities with bachelors and honours than men do.  

A lot of literature has tended to put the responsibility for women’s empowerment, on women, advising women on how to behave to better fit into male-dominated workplaces.

In their article, the World Economic Forum concludes, “Indeed diversity is an execution problem, a cultural problem”. As one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), gender equality is not only a priority worldwide it also benefits all members of society; it is critical to upholding human rights, governance, sustainable development, and economic prosperity.

Although women's empowerment is a critical element of gender equality, gender equality is not a "women's issue," nor can it be advanced solely through women's efforts. Men are important allies who can share the responsibility and participate actively in this agenda.

The support of men is critical in decreasing the gender parity gap, as men continue to hold most of the influential decision-making positions in the workplace. Working in partnership with women, male allies can be game changers in transforming the cultures and institutions that uphold harmful gender norms.

This women’s month I challenge you to focus your events, articles, Ted Talks on how men can partner with women in achieving gender parity. The wins we achieve now, will not only benefit this generation of women, but pave the way for empowering future generations.