How long for UK gender pay gap to be bridged at top of finance? About 30 years
It will take 30 years to reach gender parity at senior levels of the financial services industry if nothing is done to improve the “frustratingly slow” current rate, the Treasury’s champion on the issue has warned.
Amanda Blanc, who is also chief executive of the insurer Aviva, said women and business could not afford to wait that long to achieve equality.
The government’s women in finance charter waslaunched in 2016 as a voluntary agreement committing firms to gender diversity targets. More than 400 City institutions have signed up to it, including Aviva, the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange, the fund manager BlackRock, the banks Morgan Stanley, Santander and Monzo, and the building society Nationwide.
Research by the women in finance taskforce found the proportion of senior management among the 400 signatories who were female increased by just one percentage point between 2018 and 2020, from 31% to 32%. It calculated that at this rate, it would take the financial services industry another 30 years to achieve gender parity at senior levels.
Blanc, who has run Aviva since July 2020 and was appointed by the Treasury as the women in finance charter champion a year ago, said: “Progress towards gender equality in the financial sector remains frustratingly slow. Women, companies and society cannot afford to wait 30 years when we can achieve this in 10.
“We’ve got to work quicker and harder, for the sake of women, for the sake of society and because a more diverse business is a more productive and innovative one.”
She unveiled a series of proposals to tackle the problem: mandating shortlists for senior positions with 50% female representation, greater use of psychometric testing in recruitment, removing male-biased recruitment
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