Number of top female execs falls in region

Ahead of International Women’s Day this Sunday, the annual survey revealed that the proportion of business leadership roles held by women in Asia Pacific has fallen below the global average. While the situation in developed economies has broadly stagnated over the past decade, there has been a marked decrease in emerging markets, potentially driven by rapid urbanisation, according to the report "Women in business: the path to leadership".

The proportion of senior roles held by women in Asia Pacific has dropped to 20 per cent, below both the global average (22 per cent) and the long-run average for the region (24 per cent). Amongst developed nations in the region, Japan (8 per cent) still sits at the bottom of the global rankings, with Singapore (23 per cent) and Australia (22 per cent) showing little deviation over the past decade. New Zealand dropped to 19 per cent this year, down from a long-run average of 28 per cent.

Much more fluctuation is evident in emerging nations, with China dropping to 25 per cent, down from an average of 32 per cent across the past decade, Thailand to 27 per cent (from 37 per cent), Malaysia to 22 per cent (from 27 per cent) and Indonesia to 20 per cent (from 31 per cent). India sits third from bottom of the global rankings (15 per cent).

IBR is a survey of both listed and privately held businesses. The data for this release are drawn from interviews with 5,404 chief executive officers, managing directors, chairmen or other senior executives from all industry sectors in mid-market businesses in 35 economies, conducted between September and December 2014.

For the purposes of this research, senior management/leadership is defined as those holding C-Suite jobs such as chief executive officer, chief operating officer, chief financial officer, managing directors or partners.

Support structures erode

Julaporn Namchaisiri, managing director of corporate finance services at Grant Thornton in Thailand, said that emerging Asia-Pacific economies have historically benefited from cheap childcare infrastructure in the form of relatives living nearby, allowing women to go out to work. However, mass urbanisation is starting to erode these support structures as well as raise aspirations and increase job opportunities for women, meaning that many are now choosing to have children later in life, if at all.

"Japan and India may be at very different stages of their development but they share certain cultural features, such as being strong hierarchical and patriarchal societies, which prevents women from reaching the upper echelons of the business world."

Julaporn added that specifically with regards to Thailand, recently the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) released a report showing that in 2040, the total workforce will drop to 35.2 million from the current 39 to 40 million. As the total workforce starts to decline more of the younger members of extended familial groups, which have traditionally been supporting families, will need to work. At the same time, Thai people are getting older. The same report indicated that the number of people in Thailand aged over 60 years will rocket from 6.4 million now (9 per cent of the population) to 20.5 million in 2040 (32 per cent of the population). This is an astonishing 564,000 more every year or 1,545 people every single day.

"One disturbing result of these factors is an increasing trend for senior women in Thailand to seek early retirement. This is to look after members of their family, especially ageing parents, and because they increasingly have the means to do so.

However, the net effect is a reduction in women in more senior positions, creating a "brain drain" of experienced and seasoned executives. This trend will only continue in Thailand."