Diversity in European firms doubled throughout the pandemic
The pandemic has seen a boom for women in executive and leadership positions, as a new study has found the number of women participating in such roles doubled throughout the pandemic.
The Gender Diversity Index 2020, released by Belgian analyst firm European Women on Boards (EWOB) looked at 628 companies across Europe and found that, despite the number of women bagging leadership roles going up, there is still slow progress on top jobs.
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It ranks them using the Gender Diversity Index (GDI), a metric used to rank how firms fare when it comes to women in executive roles. A GDI exceeding 0.8 is considered a high score within the ranking.
The research suggests that one-third of the companies analysed have boards comprising 40% or more of women and 13% where the absolute share of women in leadership roles was above 40%, up from 8% in 2019.
The report also found that, of the companies analysed, only 42 had a female CEO and 129 had a woman in any role within the C-Suite - executive managerial roles within a company.
The report also found that 9% of the chairs of boards within these companies are women.
The rankings have changed substantially since 2019, with 14 new companies entering the top 20 rankings.
Three companies, all property businesses: Britain's Assura and Grainger Sweden's Wihlborgs Fastiger came with a perfect GDI of 1, signalling complete equality between men and women within managerial roles. These three companies came in joint first place on the EWOB's ranking.
Four of the companies listed had GDI's exceeding 1, which indicates they had more women than men in executive roles within their business.
Conversely, six companies clocked in with a GDI of 0, indicating they had no women in any leadership roles within their company.
The study suggests women were hit harder by the pandemic, suffering higher job displacement and unemployment and greater stress juggling work and family.
Diversity between the sexes and genders has become a staple in modern business with many companies signalling a commitment to diversity.
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The UN has set a goal for complete gender equality and several EU nations have followed suits with laws or business practices encouraging the idea.
Generally speaking, companies from western Europe, such as France, the UK, Norway and Finland led the ranking, whereas eastern Europe was still lagging behind.
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