Leading firms yet to capitalise on female talent

Leading companies are failing to capitalise on the talents of women in the workforce, according to the World Economic Forum's Corporate Gender Gap Report 2010.

It is the first study to cover the world's largest employers in 20 countries and benchmark them against the gender equality policies that most companies should have in place but are, in fact, widely missing.

"The findings of The Corporate Gender Gap Report are an alarm bell on International Women's Day that the corporate world is not doing enough to achieve gender equality. While a certain set of companies in Scandinavia, the US and the UK are indeed leaders in integrating women, the idea that most corporations have become gender-balanced or women-friendly is still a myth. With this study, we are giving businesses a one-stop guide on what they need to do to close the corporate gender gap," said Saadia Zahidi, Co-author of the report and head of the Forum's Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme.

The United States (52 per cent), Spain (48 per cent), Canada (46 per cent) and Finland (44 per cent) have the highest percentage of women employees at all levels among the responding companies. India is the country with the lowest percentage of women employees (23 per cent), followed by Japan (24 per cent), Turkey (26 per cent) and Austria (29 per cent).

The sectors that display the lowest percentage of women in the 20 economies are automotive (18 per cent), mining (18 per cent) and agriculture (21 per cent).

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