Females perform better
This week, Australian research institute Centre for Gender Economics and Innovation (C4GEi) and Infinitas Asset Management released a report that particularly drew my interest.
This is all about performance indicators and female participation. From the time I got involved with Save the Children in 1997, I always advocated against undermining females. The reason for my advocacy was different from what I read from this new research in Australia.
Traditionally, female members in the family used to be regarded as carers of home. As a child rights advocate at that time, I fiercely confronted many fathers who discriminated their daughters and daughter-in-laws, many husbands who misbehaved with wives and many community leaders who regarded females as inferior class.
My conviction was, if one gender of the family – males – have that capacity to earn and help raise family, other gender’s contribution would open doors of prosperity for the family.
Simply put in – parents prefer to seek advise from their son, not from daughter. When this simple formula translates into bigger picture, big companies and government prefers to have more males in the decision-making process, not females.
The root cause of discrimination – with preconceived mindset that females perform poorer – starts at the family. It is the same fathers who make decision at the national level. When they discriminate at home, they discriminate anywhere.
The latest research that I mentioned at the beginning found that Australian companies where women hold at least a quarter of the board positions perform better than those with all-male boards. This has added new dimension to my thought that females not only add economic values to the team (family or company) but outperform males.
Companies that have gender-diverse boards are delivering 7 per cent per annum higher returns for investors than companies that have no women at all.
Australian companies where women hold at least a quarter of the board positions perform better than those with all-male boards, research has found.
In Australia, 34 of the top 200 companies have all male boards and about one-third of them meet the 25 per cent threshold of female board members.
I am feeling lucky that I work in the team where females outnumber males and female leads. We are certainly performing awesome!!