Less Than a Third of UK’s Top Jobs Filled by Women
The charity is absolutely right: these statements on the lack of diversity as a 'bad for us all' should be taken seriously, as figures indicate I said that men in all societies occupy the top positions twice as often as women.
Charity has stated that women occupy less than one-third of the top positions in the United Kingdom, including only eight out of one hundred FTSE women holding the helm of firms.
According to the latest Fawcett Society's Sex and Power Report, in every other social sphere as well, the ratio of men to women in positions of influence is around two to one, which means women's underrepresentation is greatly amplified for women of ethnic minorities.
The report mentioned that no women belonging to minority ethnic groups occupied the 'CEO' position in any of the one hundred most prominent public companies registered in the United Kingdom. Still, all of the executive and board positions at companies in the UK were filled with white men, who made up three-fifths of FTSE 100's board membership (60.4%).
The only change observed was in the percentage of minorities - women, men, as mentioned, and ethnic. There was an increase in the rate of ethnic minority men from 4.6% to 6.3% between 2019 and 2021; however, the proportion of ethnic minority women increased from as low as 2.8% to 4% during the same period.
Among the 5,166 influential positions the study reviewed in numerous sectors such as business, law, sports, health politics, etc., women managed to secure only 32 % of these positions, indicating that 919 were out of these top positions in the UK.
Fawcett Society CEO Jemima Olchawski said this inequality affects not just women left behind but the society because male superiority in higher positions is not healthy.
"Those who occupy the top positions in our society are the ones who have the power to influence the way our democracy and culture as well as the economy shapes," she said. "Men and women are all worse off because we lose out women on talent, abilities, and views."
Olchawski stated it is "shocking that in 2022, women of colour will be absent from leadership roles in some of our critical institutions and organizations."
"Bars on advanced women or especially advanced women of colour still prevail within the structures, culture and often people. And we can all benefit as a society from these women," she said.
Echoing the sentiments of Dianne Greyson, the leader of the Ethnicity Pay Gap Campaign, using the data, once again urged the government to make it a requirement for employers to report on ethnic pay variation. "This is a pivotal proportion of measures geared at handling structural challenges that inhibit women, of course, women of ethnicities, from advancing to leadership roles in the society," she explained.
As per our latest findings, what we see is that black women are being discriminated against in pay relative to their counterparts and are struggling to go up the corporate ladder due to arresting prevailing stereotypes. "We would like to see businesses eliminate the cultural and institutional barriers that affect women of ethnic heritage," said Greyson.
There, the executives were told that although companies were making some headway in creating business opportunities for women, the pace of change could have been more active. It was stressed that firms must "positively move towards achieving diversification of its upper echelons" of directors using and meeting similar targets that are now apparently being used to enhance diversity among non-executive positions.
In 2021, women occupied 37.7 percent of the total directorships within FTSE 100 companies, growing from 32.1 percent in 2019; of the female directors, 0.3% were executive directors. This rose from 10.9% for the comparative period between 2019 to 2021.
by Francis Churchill