THE NEVER-ENDING WAR OF THE SEXES
Amid pandemic, PHL logs lowest rank in this year’s Global Gender Gap Index
THE Philippines recorded its lowest ranking in this year’s Global Gender Gap Index released recently by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The country is now ranked 19th out of 146 countries. This is the lowest since 2006 when the country debuted in the index at 6th out of 115 countries.
Based on previous performance, the Philippines’s highest ranking in the index was in 2013 at 5th out of 136 countries. The country has always been part of the top 10 between 2006 and 2018.
“While the country has improved upon its first gender parity score by 4.2 percentage points, since 2013 progress has hovered between 0.783 and 0.799,” WEF said in its report.
“In 2022 the Philippines recorded a gender gap of 21.7 percent, similar to last year. As a result, the Philippines dropped two spots in the general ranking, from 17th to 19th, with minor variations across subindexes,” the report stated.
The Global Gender Gap Index is based on countries’ performance in economic participation and opportunity; education attainment; health and survival; and political engagement.
The Philippine setting
BASED on the 2022 report, the Philippines ranked the lowest at 46th overall in educational attainment. This represented a decline of 7 notches from 39th in 2021.
The WEF said this is because gender parity decreased in primary education enrollment, where there is a larger share of boys than girls.
Another subindex was political empowerment at 35th out of 146 countries and 30th overall in terms of health and survival.
In terms of political , there was a two-notch decrease from 33rd place in 2021 and four-notch decline in health and survival compared to last year.
The WEF said the country’s ranking was mainly due to the absence of “significant changes, positive or negative” in these subindices.
In terms of economic participation, where the country ranked its highest this year, the Philippines was 16th overall in 2022. This was a decline of two notches from 17th in 2021.
“On the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, while the entire labor force was impacted, in 2022 the share of women participating in the workforce was still 24.5 percentage points lower than the share of men. Gender parity for legislative, senior officers and managers, as well as for professional and technical workers, remains constant,” the report stated.
Hiring women
IN a statement issued on Wednesday, Linkedin noted that more women are being hired in leadership roles since 2015, with the largest increase seen in the Philippines among all Asia-pacific markets studied.
Based on its latest data, Linkedin stated that only about 1 in 3 or 34 percent of hires into leadership positions in the Philippines in 2015 were women, with that figure jumping to 43 percent in 2022.
Of the countries considered, the second largest increase among Asia-pacific markets are from Australia; New Zealand also saw an increase to 40 percent in 2022 from 34 percent in 2015.
However, Singapore saw a slightly smaller increase in the hiring of women into leadership roles to 37 percent in 2022 from 32 percent in 2015.
“Out of the 36 major economies considered, the Philippines ranks 4th globally in the representation of women in leadership positions. Linkedin data shows that women account for a third of leadership roles (31 percent) worldwide,” Linkedin said in its statement.
However, women are not getting promoted internally into leadership positions as frequently as men.
In the Philippines, men are 26 percent more likely to be promoted into leadership positions than women. This statistic is more pronounced in other Asia-pacific countries like Singapore and India (42 percent).
Linkedin also said the proportion of women decreases as they rise through the career ranks. At a global average, there are only 27 percent of women at the Vice President (VP) level, and 25 percent at the C-suite (CXO) level—two of the highest seniority levels in the workforce.
In the Philippines, there are 40 percent at the VP level and 32 percent at the CXO level, higher than the global average.
Tiebreaker
FURTHER, while there are more female leaders in industries where women are better represented in the workforce, their representation in leadership roles within these industries is not always necessarily higher than men.
In the Philippines, there are more women working in Education at 62 percent and only slightly more female leaders than male leaders at 52 percent. In the Healthcare sector, there are more women at 60 percent, but only 45 percent women are in leadership roles.
“Our data is telling us a very clear story: Women face more barriers in the workplace when compared to their male counterparts—they are currently underrepresented in leadership, and are not being promoted into leadership roles at the same rate as men,” Feon Ang, Linkedin managing director for Asia-pacific, said.
“We need to do more to ensure that women in the workforce have equal access to opportunities. Organizations and business leaders should look at solutions like internal mobility, fair hiring practices with a focus on skills and flexibility. This will ensure that women are equal contributors at all levels in an organization,” she added.
Linkedin said its data was based on anonymized and aggregated profile information of Linkedin’s 830 million members around the world.
As such, it is influenced by how members choose to use the platform, which can vary based on professional, social, and regional culture, as well as overall site availability and accessibility.