Marginal gains

Every two years, the KangaNews Women in Capital Markets Yearbook survey focuses specifically on progress in and observations about gender diversity in the Australasian capital markets. The 2024 survey suggests progress in the past half decade has been marginal at best, with the overall situation seemingly stuck at a level that might best be described as ‘acceptable but with room for improvement’.

The survey canvasses the views of female identifying participants in Australian and New Zealand capital markets. As with previous iterations, the survey received around 200 responses from women working in a wide range of institutions (see chart 1), though with a skew toward more senior and more experienced workers (see charts 2 and 3).

The survey continues to make it clear that women believe gender diversity and inclusion in the workplace provides numerous advantages, including for employers. An overwhelming majority of survey responses agree with the suggestion that “diversity of thought leads to better decisions and outcomes” and almost as many agree that diversity “promotes a healthier work culture” (see chart 4).

Unfortunately, it appears that the financial services sector is not galloping ahead with progress on gender diversity compared with other career options. The proportion of women working in the industry who believe it is outperforming comparable sectors has barely moved since 2020 and remains stuck at around half the proportion of participants who believe financial services is a laggard (see chart 5).

The proportion of women who believe the industry and their own workplaces specifically have improved their performance on gender equity and inclusion is also relatively static, at around two-thirds of survey responses (see chart 6).

The only real development in the 2024 survey relative to the 2020 and 2022 iterations is that there is no longer any obvious edge in women’s perception of where they work relative to the industry overall.

The consensus seems to be that things are improving, it is just that most believe they are doing so slowly and by small increments. Nearly 90 per cent of women responding to the survey say industry gender diversity and equity has improved since 2020 but the vast majority of them believe it has done so only by “a little” or “a moderate amount” (see chart 7).

On the other hand, perceptions of corporate culture do not appear to be improving. In the 2024 survey, 62 per cent of women rate the diversity culture at their current employer as very good or quite good – almost exactly the same as the 2022 survey but 10 per cent down on the result from 2020 (see chart 8).

The good news is that the drop-off has mostly migrated only as far as the “indifferent” response bucket and just 2 per cent of survey responses in 2024 rate their workplace’s culture as “very poor” – the lowest ever – suggesting that genuinely toxic workplace environments may be fewer and further between nowadays.

Progress is still needed, however. Another area where this is clear is views on career breaks. The overwhelming majority of women continue to believe a career break, for instance extended parental leave, would have a negative impact on their progression at work and half of survey responses suggest it would have a significant one (see chart 9).

One area of marginal improvement is the proportion of survey respondents who report that their gender has disadvantaged them professionally. While more than half say it has, the large majority of those say it has not done so for at least two years; the proportion reporting recent experiences has fallen below 10 per cent for the first time (see chart 10).

When it comes to what approaches should be taken to further improve gender diversity in the financial sector, the simple answer is ‘all of them’. A majority of women responding to the KangaNews survey believe all proposed options support the promotion of gender diversity, though the most popular approaches are “employer diversity and inclusion policies”, outreach programmes to universities and elsewhere, and “giving profile to female leaders” for instance at industry events (see chart 14).

This is a significant data point as the survey also makes clear that women are prepared to choose or change employers because of their performance on gender diversity and inclusion. In fact, nearly 60 per cent of survey respondents say they have done exactly that – half of them reporting that gender diversity policy or environment has been “a significant factor” in joining or remaining with an organisation (see chart 11).

It is at middle and senior tiers where employers are still falling short on gender diversity, most women believe. Nearly threequarters say the industry is doing enough to recruit women at entry level, but this figure collapses to just 29 per cent at middle-management level and to just 18 per cent when it comes to senior roles (see chart 12). Interestingly, the shape of the response hardly changes when only the views of more junior women responding to the survey are taken into account (see chart 13).

Having good gender diversity policies in place would therefore seem to be an obvious approach for employers to take – and 70 per cent of women report that their company has such a policy in place (see chart 15). A shortfall of 30 per cent is still significant, however.

Overall, there is clearly still work to be done on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) – specifically related to gender and more widely. The proportion of women who believe the industry will achieve an appropriate level of gender diversity within the next decade has actually fallen since 2022 – to 41 per cent, from 48 per cent (see chart 16). Other areas of DEI may be even further behind: the majority of survey responses suggest the industry is doing better on gender than on cultural and ethnic diversity – especially with regard to First Nations people – or sexual identity (see chart 17).