Where are the women in business?

It’s easy to become complacent about social progress, especially under a still optimistic new government fronted by a progressive prime minister who will soon be a working mother. But International Women’s Day, which fell on Thursday, was a reminder that there are still battles to be won.

In some ways, we have gone backwards. It was shocking to learn from Grant Thornton International’s annual Women in Business report that New Zealand ranks 33rd out of 35 countries when numbers of women on company leadership teams are measured. We used to be in the top 10.

According to the survey, representation of women on senior management teams has slipped to 18 per cent from 20 per cent in 2017. It is at its lowest since the survey started in the relative golden age of 2004, when it was up at 31 per cent.

This is dismal. Even Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter said she found the numbers ‘‘incredibly surprising’’.

Her response to the depressingly low numbers of senior women in business was to talk about concrete action taken by this Government. The extension of Paid Parental Leave to 26 weeks is an important step that will enable working mothers to maintain careers.

Pay equity is another priority, as women are disproportionately underpaid. Sixty per cent of workers on the minimum wage are women, Genter said. She pointed to the major pay equity settlement under the previous government, famously fronted by care worker Kristine Bartlett.

But these and other measures may not make a difference higher up. Davies argues that a company’s culture has to change, and that can only be done from within. Or more accurately, from the top. A company’s leaders have to push for change, to make a campaign of it by ‘‘actively championing the cause to create inclusive cultures where every individual has an equal opportunity to flourish’’.

Too many New Zealand businesses clearly haven’t bothered or don’t see the point.

All this is being discussed against a backdrop of genuine cultural and social change. On Wednesday Governorgeneral Dame Patsy Reddy launched a year-long celebration of 125 years since women won the vote in New Zealand by remarking on the momentum and anger behind the #metoo movement that has grown out of revelations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.

Locally, this movement has focused on reports of inappropriate behaviour at the law firm Russell Mcveagh and wider sexism in the legal profession. Some see a direct link with low levels of women in senior management.

We may have to wait for another generation, perhaps one inspired or radicalised by #metoo, before we see the wider culture change that the Women in Business report shows to still be so necessary.