A new report shows that women now hold more than one in five board seats in Hong Kong-listed companies for the first time. However, major gaps remain in leadership roles and pay equality.
As of October, 20.8% of board seats were held by women, up from 19% last year and 16% in 2022. The report by MSCI, a financial firm, also found that the percentage of companies with a female CEO rose to 5.6%, from 4.4% the previous year.
Moeko Porter, corporate governance research lead at MSCI, noted that the Asia-Pacific region is making progress towards gender diversity, particularly by reducing the number of all-male boards.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) introduced a rule three years ago requiring all listed companies to have at least one female board member by the end of 2024. By January, 85 companies, about 3% of the total, had not complied. At the time of the rule change, 40% of listed companies had all-male boards.
Companies with at least 30% female board members saw 19% higher returns than those without, the MSCI report found.
Despite progress, gender disparities still exist. The percentage of female chief financial officers dropped to 14.8%, down from 19.1% the previous year.
According to the Women Workplace Index (WWI), women earned up to 30% less than men in basic pay in 2023. Nicole Yuen, WWI’s CEO, said the gender gaps in bonuses and total compensation were even larger.
More than half of companies have equal-pay policies, but only 16% track gender-pay data, and even fewer share this information publicly.
While 25% of companies have set targets for increasing female representation, many lack transparency on parental leave policies. Only 36% of companies disclose their parental leave policies, and less than 10% offer more leave than required by law. Only 5% clearly state the number of leave days.
“Public disclosures of women’s workplace policies are crucial for shifting corporate culture,” said Yuen. “They create a subtle yet effective obligation for improvement and help share best practices.”
