Gender diversity is becoming increasingly important in today's workplace. Companies that are committed to diversity and inclusion are preferred by employees and applicants and are also perceived more positively by other stakeholders.
How gender-diverse are companies in the asset management industry in German-speaking countries? What goals do they pursue in terms of gender diversity and what measures do they take to increase it? The study „Gender Diversity in the Asset Management Industry“ by the University of Mannheim in cooperation with KPMG explores these and other questions.
Central results of the study
In comparison with analogue predecessor studies, positive trends can be seen. However, there are still enormous gender differences.
- The proportion of female applicants is rising.
- Women are also increasingly found in quantitative areas such as portfolio and risk management.
- Companies are more willing to implement quantitative targets such as quotas for women to improve gender diversity. Nevertheless, qualitative measures remain much more popular.
- There are still significantly fewer women than men in senior positions: Women make up 40 per cent of the companies surveyed, but only 21 per cent on the executive committee.
- Men take up part-time employment more often compared to previous studies, although still significantly less often than their female colleagues.
- When it comes to starting a family, large differences are still visible: none of the fathers take parental leave for longer than six months, in contrast to 77 percent of the mothers. There are also big differences on the part of the companies in how paternity leave and bonus entitlements are handled.
Fifteen companies with global managed assets of over 4,780 billion euros took part in the survey. For Germany, the study achieved a market coverage of around 63 percent. The data for the study was collected online between March and May 2023 and then combined with survey results from previous years to conduct trend analyses.
