While women on boards were in a good position to advocate for changes, the magnitude of their impact from studies undertaken was relatively small, the study’s co-author, Associate Prof Helen Roberts, said.
"Their effect is also weaker at lower levels of management. So appointing women to leadership positions is one strategy that organisations should use to achieve gender equity", she said in a statement.
Due to the lack of data collected in New Zealand to undertake the analysis, study co-authors Prof Kevin Stainback and Dr Pallab Biswas examined Australian data on listed and private companies from 2014 to 2020, produced by statutory agency Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
Associate Prof Roberts said the Australian data was extremely applicable to New Zealand firms, as both countries faced the same questions when it came to how to increase women’s representation in the workplace.
Her team found having women on boards was important to increase top management level representation, which then created a significant trickle-down of women into general management representation.
But without women present at the top management level, there was no evidence that having women on boards influenced the number of women in general or lower to middle management.
It was also important to have women moving up into managerial level appointments from lower-level positions, instead of remaining stuck in entry-level positions with no possibility of promotion.
"So, there is both a trickle down and pipeline effect needed to create greater workplace diversity", Associate Prof Roberts said.
The research also found having a woman manager immediately above or below the managerial level for appointment increased the likelihood of having a woman appointed to that role.
The results were particularly important when viewed in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with recent data showing its 2030 gender equity goals were unlikely to be met. UN 2023 statistics showed that at the current rate of advancement, women’s managerial representation would not reach parity with men for 140 years.
"The UN has noted the persistent gender inequality in women’s managerial and leadership representation and highlighted it as a central global sustainability concern.
"Firms need to promote women at all managerial levels by setting transparent diversity goals, monitoring progress through data-driven analysis and regularly overseeing progress on diversity goals through an assigned responsibility", she said.
