Inclusiveness, women, and leadership.

Inclusive teams make better business decisions up to 87% of the time. Decisions made and executed by diverse teams deliver 60% better results. Teams with less diversity are more likely to make poor choices. Teams that follow an inclusive process make decisions two times faster with half the meetings.

(Erik Larson, 2017, New Research: Diversity and Inclusion Equals Better Decision Making at Work).

Organisations that actively support gender equality make better decisions. A study which analysed more than 1,000 companies and non-profits worldwide, proved that organisations with greater diversity among their executive teams have higher profits and longer-term value.

(McKinsey & Company)

Gender parity can have a large impact on whether an economy or society will thrive.

(World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report, 2020)

The latest available information on gender, however, shows the world is not on track to achieve gender equality any time soon.

• The glass ceiling remains intact. Close to 1 in every 3 managers/supervisors is a woman. At the current pace of change, parity will not be achieved for another 140 years.
  (UN Women, Sustainable Development Goals, 2022)

• Gender gaps in housework participation are the largest among couples with children, at 62% demonstrating an enduring imbalance in unpaid care responsibilities within families.
  (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2022)

• In the USA, on average, men's median salary is 11% higher than the median wage for women, regardless of position.
  (PayScale, 2023)

• Women’s labour force participation in 2022 is projected to remain below pre-pandemic levels in 169 countries and areas (50.8 per cent, compared to 51.8 per cent in 2019); the gender gap is expected to widen in 114 countries and areas compared to 2019.
  (UN Women, Sustainable Development Goals, 2022)

• The gender gap in hours worked in employment, already large before the pandemic, has expanded globally, threatening to increase pervasive gender pay gaps.
  (UN Women, Sustainable Development Goals, 2022)

• School and day-care closures in 2020 led to an estimated 512 billion additional hours of unpaid childcare globally for women.
  (UN Women, Sustainable Development Goals, 2022)

While positive steps have been made towards equality of women in the workplace in Australia, such as passing of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill in March 2023, conditions are still far from ideal.

In Australia (Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2023):

• 42% of women work full time, compared to 67% of men.

• Only 1 in 5 boards have gender balance.

• 22.3% of CEOs are women.

• Australia’s gender pay gap is 22.8%, the same as 2021. Women earned, on average, $26.6K less than men in 2021-22.

• Men are twice as likely as women to be in the top earnings quartile, earning above $122,000. 33% of men earn above $122,00 compared to 17% of women in the same quartile.

• Men are significantly more likely to hold managerial positions, even in female dominated industries.

• 82% of employers have a formal policy on flexibility.

• 70% of employers have a formal policy or strategy to support employees experiencing family or domestic violence but only 47.5% of employers offer paid domestic violence leave.

• Men account for 13% of all paid primary carer’s leave taken.