Women’s History Month: Data-Based Insights Across 9 Categories

March is Women’s History Month. Given FactSet’s expertise with data and analytics, we’d like to share nine data-based insights highlighting women in business.

International

Board and Management Diversity Across the Globe

Among Group of Seven (G-7) countries representing the world’s largest developed economies—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States—the percent of female board members is significantly higher than the percent of female CEOs.

Seven countries lead the way when looking at the percentages of female non-CEO executives: Australia, China, Hong Kong, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

Source: MSCI. The MSCI ACWI Index data contained herein is the property of MSCI Inc. or its affiliates (collectively, “MSCI”). MSCI and its information providers make no warranties. The MSCI data is used under license and may not be further used, distributed or disseminated without the express written consent of MSCI.

Percent of Women in Management Positions

Across management-level roles around the world, Human Resources is the only professional segment with women in the majority. The Legal and Investor Relations segments round out the top three segments for women.

Source: MSCI. The MSCI ACWI Index data contained herein is the property of MSCI Inc. or its affiliates (collectively, “MSCI”). MSCI and its information providers make no warranties. The MSCI data is used under license and may not be further used, distributed or disseminated without the express written consent of MSCI.

Number of Female CEOs by Sector

Globally, there are nearly three times the number of CEOs who are women in the Financials and Health Care sectors compared to the Consumer Staples, Communication Services, and Utilities sectors.

Source: MSCI. The MSCI ACWI Index data contained herein is the property of MSCI Inc. or its affiliates (collectively, “MSCI”). MSCI and its information providers make no warranties. The MSCI data is used under license and may not be further used, distributed or disseminated without the express written consent of MSCI.

Correlation of Gender Diversity Metrics with ROA, ROE, and Profit Margins

From Dr. Joanna Nash at FactSet client Realindex Investments in her December 2022 article, used with permission:

“The following table indicates the average cross-sectional correlations of the firm gender diversity (as captured by the percentage of females in senior management—senior management gender diversity and the percentage of females on the board—board gender diversity) with several firm characteristics. The highest correlation of 1 is represented in the lightest color, and the lower correlation is shown in the darker colors.

“We find that gender-diverse firms (both board and senior management) are typically higher quality firms, where gender diversity has a positive correlation with return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and profit margins (gross and net profit margins). They also tend to have higher price returns over the previous year (MOM12M) and lower market volatility, as evidenced by the negative correlation to 12-month price volatility (VOL12M).

“We also find that larger capitalized firms (as captured by size) tend to have higher diversity, especially in the boardroom, while diverse firms also appear to have high valuation multiples, as seen by the negative correlation between the diversity metrics and book yield (BY) and earnings yield (EY).”

Source: Realindex Investments and FactSet (Jan. 1, 2009 – Dec. 31, 2021) – MSCI AWCI

United States

Gender Diversity on Boards of Directors

Year over year for the past five years, there has been growth in the number of women who comprise U.S. boards of directors. The average annual increase is 2.6 percentage points. Notably, however, after the year-over-year increase peaked at 3.5 percentage points between 2020 to 2021, it fell by half to 1.7 percentage points between 2021 to 2022.

Source: FactSet – Russell 3000^®

Female Representation on U.S. Boards

Between 2018 and 2022, there was an average annual decrease of nearly 4 percentage points in the share of companies with no females on the board. At the same time, the percent of women-majority boards increased year-over-year, though at a substantially slower pace (up 0.4 percentage points).

Source: FactSet – Russell 3000^®

Gender Allocations in U.S. Boards

The percent of company boards of directors in which women comprise at least 30% of the members has increased, on average, by 8 percentage points annually since 2019. If that rate of increase continues, women will account for more than half of board membership in 2024.

Source: FactSet – Russell 3000^®

Women in Management Positions

Similar to the global analysis of women across management-level roles, in the U.S., Human Resources is the only professional segment with women comprising the majority. Conversely, U.S. Compliance and Chief Administration executives who are women round out the top three segments. Notably, across 12 of the management-level roles measured globally, the U.S. outperforms in eight of them.

Source: FactSet – Russell 3000^®

Percent of Female CEOs by Sector

When focusing on CEOs who are women, there is significant underperformance in the United States—the country trails global percentages in eight of 11 sectors. Financials is the top underperformer, where only 4.5% of U.S. women are CEOs compared to 27% globally.

Source: FactSet – Russell 3000^®

Data provided in the Russell 3000^® charts is from the FactSet workstation.

This blog post is for informational purposes only. The information contained in this blog post is not legal, tax, or investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.