Gender parity in governments: A photograph says it all…

Several years ago Elle Magazine published a powerful photo essay which went viral across social media. 

Common photographs of political gatherings, business meetings and even entertainment sets which we see every day in the news were ‘photo-shopped’ to remove all of the men present, leaving eerily empty rooms with only a few women. The purpose of the montage is very apparent and clear. Women rarely equal let alone outnumber men in positions of leadership. This week as the United Nations General Assembly meets for its annual meeting here in New York, this issue is as pertinent as ever.

As of this year there are only 15 female world leaders currently in office (excluding ceremonial heads of state and monarchs). Eight of these are their country’s first woman in power, according to recent data from the World Economic Forum. To put it into perspective for this week, women leaders represent 7% of the entire 193 UN member states. While we haven’t seen a photographic illustration of this current state of play this week at the UN, we already know that the picture is bleak at the top of governments for women in power.

But what about governments as a whole? What does this picture look like for women who hold senior civil service positions in national governments?

Sadly it doesn't look much better. 

While, women make up half of the world’s population - and across the G20 make-up just under 50% of the total public sector workforce - the average proportion of women in senior civil service positions across the G20 is just 26.4%.

This data comes from the latest and fourth annual Women in Leadership Index - the preeminent study of women in public service leadership roles across G20 countries. It is a joint study by EY and the Global Government Forum.

Although this year's Index shows that the proportion of women leaders has increased by 1.5% over the last year and 7% since the first Index was published in 2013 - these numbers nevertheless reinforce the picture that women remain significantly underrepresented in key decision-making positions across the world. The infamous glass ceiling is well and truly entrenched across the world’s largest and most influential economies. 

But let's look a little deeper at the data. While the overall numbers remain low, gains have been made and these are in fact worth celebrating and calling attention to. It is also clear that the right policy interventions are beginning to take hold in some countries, changing leadership structures. There are indeed some encouraging takeaways.

Canada, which has occupied the top spot of the Index since the study's inception in 2013, now has 46.4% women leaders. One of Canada's bright spots is that its government continues to be vocal and engaged on the issue of gender equality at the very highest levels. Canada’s government is near equality and the trends of the Index suggest that it may exceed 50% in the near future. In one of Justin Trudeau's first actions as Prime Minister in 2015, he announced that his Cabinet would be deliberately comprised half women and half men. This move clearly has had top-down influence and continues to be celebrated as a model for not only governments but also businesses around the world.

Australia, my home country, has seen the largest improvement among the Index’s top performing countries since 2013 in part because it has also set a target of equal numbers of men and women on its government boards, which include policy advisory boards, Government Business Enterprises and review and inquiry boards. Continually ranked second since the Index’s inception, Australia’s proportion of women in senior civil service roles has increased by 6 percentage points over the last four years. The country is recognizing that certain boards in traditionally male-dominated industries or sectors might find it hard to achieve parity. So the aim is for 50/50 in aggregate, with each individual board required to have at least 40% women. Australia's experiment has already had a big impact. A total of 41% of all positions on government boards are now held by women and 32% of all chair and deputy chair roles.  

Outside these two countries, many others have their own unique stories to tell. Mexico and France, for example are making excellent progress and gaining fast on the top group, thanks in part to quotas requiring that a set proportion of senior appointments go to women. If the examples of France and Mexico aren’t enough evidence that quotas work, it’s also worth noting that Germany and Italy have both seen female representation on the boards of their publicly-quoted companies climb sharply in the last two years. This happened after their governments brought in or strengthened laws to drive up the numbers of women.

In all but two of the G20 countries – Turkey and South Korea – the proportion of women in civil service leadership posts has increased over the four years since the Index was launched. Even in Saudi Arabia the figure of 1.3% represents some progress, as it wasn’t until 2015 that women were permitted to take senior civil service jobs there.

For the first time this year the Index also examined the 28 EU states (these figures cover just the top two senior civil service grades in those countries, whereas the G20 data refers to the top five levels of seniority). 

Based on the available EU data, it suggests that EU countries are much more advanced on gender equality than the G20. Five of the 28 EU countries actually have more women than men in their top two civil service grades. These five EU countries – Slovenia, Romania, Latvia, Greece and Bulgaria – have already surpassed parity, with more than half of their most senior officials being women. Top-placed Slovenia reached equality as long ago as 2008. Among all 28 nations the average is 40% women. And 12 of the 28 EU states are beating the average, with more than 40% women. But among the G20 members which are also EU members – the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany – surprisingly fall below the 40% average.

The 2017 Index paints an encouraging but also frustrating picture. Again we see several highly-developed Western nations continuing to inch slowly but inevitably towards parity. At the other end of the spectrum, a predictable group of socially conservative countries languish in single figures, seemingly always.

Today the struggle for equality has moved to lobbying for equal representation at the board room table, for legal and pay parity, and political participation. And the results in this year's Index reminds us that the fight for parity is far from over. 

Most nations have an unbalanced picture of gender equality within their senior civil service. As we stand on the brink of significant societal changes as a result of the technology revolution, we need diversity of thinking everywhere, including in Government. Diversity brings innovation and resilience – both qualities will be needed to solve the complex problems we are presented with as we shape our future. We need all leaders to push this issue along fast and bring it to the top of their agendas. Now is the time for action!

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The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.

For more insights, please visit www.uschischreiber.com and follow me on Twitter: @UschiSchreiber.