Although there is still a long way to go, the fight for equality is beginning to yield results. In 2022, 36% of management positions in Spanish medium-sized companies were women. These are the data from the Women in Business 2022 report, published a year ago by the professional services firm Grant Thornton.
That 36% marked a before and after in our country: it is the highest percentage that Spain has achieved in this area. This exceeded the percentage obtained at the European level (33%) and globally (32%).
With these data, Spain became one of the ten countries with the highest female presence in the senior management of its companies, behind South Africa (42%), Turkey (40%), Malaysia (40%), the Philippines (39%) ), Indonesia (38%), Thailand (38%), India (38%), Brazil (38%) and Nigeria (38%).
A year ago, Ramón Galcerán, president of Grant Thornton Spain, celebrated these positive data. “These figures reflect the enormous awareness of managers, who have accepted the importance of having a diverse environment and an inclusive culture. However, you should not let your guard down. We must continue to push this important goal forward.”
The two sectors where women lead the executive leadership are Financial Management and Human Resources. “That women lead positions related to the financial strategy of our companies puts them in an advantageous position towards more relevant positions, such as CEO,” said Isabel Perea, Audit partner at Grant Thornton a year ago.
The rest of the most usual managerial functions for women in Spain are the Operations Department (27%); Marketing Management (26%); CEO/General Management (25%) and IT Management (12%).
“The level of women in management positions is a reliable indicator of a country’s progress, as indicated by the United Nations. The result in Spain leads us to conclude that we are increasingly committed to equality. However, let’s not forget that we are still halfway there,” Perea commented after the publication of the Women in Business 2022 report.
In this sense, different studies and reports put on the table the inequality that continues to exist between men and women in the workplace. This is the case, for example, of the wage gap, understood as the difference between the wages of men and women.
According to EPA data, the gross salary gap (before taxes and contributions) for the main job in 2021 was 393 euros per month. This means that annually men earn an average of 4,721 euros more than women. Equal pay must be one of the objectives in terms of inclusion that companies must take into account.
“Ending inequality in working conditions, in salary, in professional development or in access to employment for women would undoubtedly translate into an improvement in productivity and results,” says Mónica Pérez, director of Communication and InfoJobs Studies. For this, it is essential that companies have training in gender perspective.
