The most equal companies beat their competitors, according to the largest fund in the world

Diversity in the workforce is profitable. A study by BlackRock, the largest fund manager in the world, indicates that companies with gender equality in the composition of their workforce obtain better results. “A first look at the relationship between the representation of women and company performance shows that diversity counts, above the prevalence of women or men,” he indicates. the analysis, released this Thursday. These more balanced companies outperformed their less diverse peers by up to 1.6 percentage points in return on assets (RoA) annually between 2013 and 2022.

The study Improve financial performance by investing in women It brings together information from 1,250 large companies, making it one of the largest developed to date to study this phenomenon. His main conclusion is that “the more balanced the company’s workforce, the greater the return on assets.” He also highlights that “having a diversified workforce at all ranks is relevant to financial performance.”

The researchers explain that companies with lower participation of women (16% on average) and those with a larger portion (60% on average) obtain lower results than those that orbit in balanced terms. The best returns are found in balance. It should be noted that, according to the results of this analysis, profitability is slightly higher in companies dominated by women than in those dominated by men. These diverse company profits are higher in Europe (2.1%) and North America (1.5%) than in Asian markets (0.2% in Japan).

“Women’s representation,” the study continues, “is closer to parity in entry-level jobs, but this balance deteriorates with seniority.” According to this study, only 18% of executive positions in 2021 were occupied by women and only 6% of CEO positions in 2022. This underrepresentation of women in positions of greatest responsibility occurs in all sectors.

“Women also tend to be strongly represented among lower-level and less specialized roles, for example in administrative work,” adds BlackRock. The study indicates that companies with a high participation of women in middle management have “better performance” than those with the most unbalanced representation. Furthermore, this is also a problem on the horizon for such companies: “We have identified a negative relationship between this measure of misalignment in the representation of women at different levels and future return on assets.”

On the other hand, promoting more women helps to achieve better staff turnover: “We estimate that improving the underrepresentation of women in higher ranks by about five percentage points is associated with a 3.6% decrease in promotion rates. turnover the following year, and 4.6% two years later.” This analysis indicates that companies with women as CEOs have almost consistently outperformed (on average by one percentage point) companies led by men in metrics over the past decade.

According to the BlackRock study, women reach high levels of representation in sectors such as health (52%) or finance (49%), while they are much less in technological, industrial and construction activities. By country, the study highlights that “the vast majority of countries have achieved that women make up at least 40% of the workforce, but there are significant disparities depending on the regions and countries.” North Africa, the Middle East and India stand out as areas with low participation of women in the labor market.

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