New Catalyst research, released for International Women’s Day, reveals the best and worst points of women’s participation in corporate Australia. 

The report covers female participation on boards and in management as well as assessing policies to help women in the workplace. 

While some companies in the ASX have real equality on their boards, overall the ASX has a long way to go. ASX50 companies have 27% female board members while the ASX200 has just 22%. 

Top and bottom companies, women on boards, ASX100: 

Women’s participation in management positions is stronger across the ASX200 (37%) than the larger companies in the ASX50 (29%). Health care companies performed best in the ASX100: 

“The ASX50 has 5 CEOs named Andrew, 4 named Michael but only three who are women: Alison Watkins (Coca Cola Amatil), Susan Lloyd-Horwitz (Mirvac Group) and Kerrie Mather (Sydney Airport).” said report author Martijn Boersma.  

“It’s very unfortunate to see that larger companies in the ASX50 are behind the ASX200 average for women in management positions. It’s important to recognise that there is no apparent ‘trickle-down’ from board to management. 

“You would think in 2016 that Australia’s biggest companies would want board representation of half the population”, said corporate social responsibility (CSR) analyst Julia Leske from CAER research, who provided some data to Catalyst’s report. 

“The research also shows there has been only glacial improvement on the gender pay gap. If we maintain the current rate of progress, we won’t reach gender equity until 2087,” Leske said. 

Catalyst is a progressive think-tank who promote social and economic equality and improved standards of corporate social responsibility. The full report and interactive ESG Dashboard can be found at: http://csr.catalyst.org.au/reports/gender-equality-at-work/ 

This is the first of a series of quarterly CSR reports to be produced by Catalyst and CAER together with The Australia Institute.