Women in leadership across the G7
Emmanuel Rivière, International Director, Opinion and Political Advisory, Kantar Public
Created in 2018 by Women Political Leaders (WPL) and Kantar, the Reykjavik Index for Leadership is based on a very simple premise: while not all individuals are suitable for positions of power, under no circumstances should gender predetermine an individual’s suitability for leadership.
In this analysis of our 2020 research, Emmanuel Rivière examines how gender stereotypes continue to influence perceptions of women in leadership roles across the G7, and argues that closing this gap in perception will require patience and determination.
The Reykjavik Index is the first of its kind to assess attitudes and perceptions towards equality between women and men. It is based on research exploring the question “for each of the following sectors or industries, do you think men or women are better suited to leadership positions, or they are both equally suited?”. An answer of 'both equally' gives a positive score - a score of 100 would indicate that across a society, there is complete agreement that women and men are 'equally suitable' to lead. Thus, any score of less than 100 is an indication of prejudice.
Across the G7 countries as a whole, the 2020-2021 Index score is 73. This score highlights the distance that still separates us from the society to which we may aspire – a society in which it will be as absurd to question the comparative suitability of women and men to lead, as it would be to ask whether being right or left-handed, or having light or dark eyes would be better in a leadership role.
At a country level, the index is calculated as the average of the scores for 23 economic sectors, from Childcare to Engineering, Education to Banking. For a country to achieve a Reykjavik Index score of 100, all respondents would need to assert consistently across all 23 sectors that there is no difference between men and women in terms of their suitability to lead. In most cases, the majority do give this expected answer.
But in each of the G7 countries, at least four in ten respondents suggest that either a man or a woman would be better suited to leadership in one or more of the sectors.
The Reykjavik Index for Leadership provides insight into how society views the suitability of men or women as leaders across different industries: it offers valuable insights for analysis and enriches a range of indicators on gender parity.
With three years of research, the Reykjavik Index provides a picture of the persistence of prejudice, as well as suggesting ways in which we might move towards a more gender-equal society.
In 2019, the average score of the Reykjavik Index for the G7 was 73. No progress has therefore been made over the past year in terms of perceptions, and since the Index’s creation in 2018, the Index has improved only be one point at the G7 average level. This stagnation is revealing in itself. These two years, during which gender issues have been widely debated, represent a missed opportunity to persuade people that regardless of the industry, suitability for leadership does not depend on gender.
More alarming still, whilst one might have hoped that the media focus on gender issues, and the apparent consensus in the quest for gender parity, would have safeguarded the progress made in shifting attitudes, that is far from being the case: the 2020-2021 Reykjavik Index reveals some significant setbacks.
The Index has fallen by three points in France and Germany, and by two points in Japan. It is stable in Italy at 68 year on year. Despite these setbacks, the Index has remained stable for the G7 countries as a whole, due to the increases in scores for Canada and the United Kingdom.
An analysis of the Reykjavik Index over the past three years shows that the G7 countries fall into two groups. On one side, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and France, have consistently achieved scores of 70+ (minimum 72, maximum 81), and on the other, Japan, Italy and Germany have so far recorded scores below 70 (Japan has only achieved a score of 70 once).
The 2020-2021 Reykjavik Index findings offer a fundamental lesson: time alone will not lead to an improvement in the index scores through a continuous and progressive shift in perceptions with young people bringing more progressive attitudes with them as they age.
Unexpectedly, the latest Reykjavik Index finds that in the G7, the youngest respondents report a lower score (72 among people aged under 35) than the older generations (74 among those aged 35-54 and 76 among those aged 55+). This is an important and alarming finding, since it stands out in stark contrast to most of the usual observations concerning opinions on issues of gender, sexual equality and the acceptance of diverse sexual orientations.
We have come to expect younger generations to influence debates in society with more progressive attitudes, and more importantly, to bring these attitudes with them as they enter the workforce, lead companies, governments and create families of their own. But the findings this year may indicate that this assumption cannot be guaranteed, and that for reasons yet to be fully understood, younger people are demonstrating more bias, maybe unconscious, about equality in leadership. Further understanding of the attitudes of young people across a range of social and policy areas will enable us to better understand if this regression is affecting gender equality, or is evident in other areas too.
Because they are generally in favour of more liberal measures in areas such as abortion rights or same sex marriage, younger generations generate momentum for change in our societies, by ensuring the acceptance of these measures as and when they replace the older generations.
But that is not the case here, since it is the younger generations who appear to be the most likely to assign leadership in a given sector to one gender or the other.
The very segments of the population which generally display the most progressive attitudes on social issues, reveal themselves here to be the most prone to gender stereotyping.
This statement also applies to people with higher education: the fact that the Reykjavik Index scores are similar among respondents regardless of their level of education, is in itself an important lesson too.
Only in France and Japan does the research show a slightly higher index among respondents with a university degree. There’s no difference in other countries. In contrast, respondents with a university degree are significantly more likely to describe themselves as 'very comfortable' with women as heads of government or leading a major company (there’s a 10-point gap in average with people with no university degree).
Highly educated people express a strong general stance, but this doesn’t make them impervious to the deep biases revealed by an examination of the Reykjavik Index data. This means that people can simultaneously assert a position of principle on equality between men and women, while being affected by prejudices and stereotypes.
This strongly suggests that those biases are mostly unconscious making them more difficult to overcome. It is as sobering as to observe that the Reykjavik Index reveals more prevalent biases among young people – and in particular among young men – at an age when they are building their professional careers.
These findings illustrate the scale of the challenge: in order to encourage young girls to aim as high as they wish, and empower them to overcome gender barriers, it is not sufficient simply to highlight a few high-profile cases of successful women leaders. We must also ask ourselves how we can educate our boys and young women, so as to stop fuelling gender stereotypes.
This is a shared responsibility of families and schools. But perhaps the media and entertainment industry should also reflect on their roles. Because the facts speak for themselves: young men who have reached adulthood in the 21st century still see the issue of female leadership through the lens of deeply-rooted stereotypes.
Stereotypes are indeed the issue at hand. Of the five sectors with the lowest Reykjavik Index scores (below 70; in some countries with fewer than half the respondents thinking that women and men are equally suited to lead), two sectors (Childcare and Fashion & Beauty) are perceived as more suited to women than to men. And three (Defence & Police, Gaming and Automotive Manufacture) tend to be perceived as more suited to men.
It is hard not to see deep-seated stereotypes in the way that these sectors are attributed to one gender or another, in these responses.
Should decisions about who is better suited to run a major company resemble the old-fashioned choices of presents under the Christmas tree, with war toys and cars for boys, and dolls and hairdressing sets for girls?
Other sectors with a low Reykjavik Index score, where more than a quarter of respondents state that one gender would be better suited to lead, are Healthcare & Well-being (more suited to women), Engineering, Aerospace and Intelligence Services (more suited to men). Here again, old stereotypes die hard.
This caricatured attribution of sectors exists across all the G7 countries – even those with a higher index overall. This clearly shows that education is the bedrock on which action must be based to breakdown those barriers to leadership for women: showcasing a handful of high-profile success stories is simply not enough.
Among the 23 sectors covered in our study, respondents answering that men and women are not equally suited to lead, report a preference for male leadership in 14 sectors, and female leadership in only nine. Let there be no mistake about these few sectors associated with women: most of these nine categories (including Education, Childcare, Healthcare & Well-being) remind us only too well of an assumed attribution of domestic tasks to women.
However, even though women are more often associated with these sectors, they still struggle to be appointed to leadership positions, and remain under-represented. 1
Our Reykjavik Index research reveals that these stereotypes are held by both male and female respondents, but not to the same extent. The gender difference found among young people in fact applies to all generations. For female respondents, the index is above 70 in all countries; but here is a systematic difference of five - ten points between men and women.
The countries with the lowest index scores primarily owe their low score to the higher likelihood of their male respondents asserting that one of the two genders is better suited to leadership. Men are more likely than women to exclude themselves from sectors perceived as ‘feminine’ in nature (such as Fashion & Beauty). They are far more likely to associate themselves with sectors such as Security, Engineering and Aerospace.
In some sectors where men and women are more often considered as equally suitable for leadership, a deeper analysis reveals that this perception is mostly expressed by women while some male respondents still claim the sector leadership as exclusively suited to men. That is the case in particular of High-Tech, Economics and Finance. However, it is to be noted that in Japan, and to a lesser extent Germany, a significant proportion of women share this tendency to see men as more suited to leadership in the same sectors.
Other questions in the study illustrate the greater difficulty that men have (compared to women) in imagining women in positions of power. In the G7 countries as a whole, women are far more likely than men to feel “very comfortable” with the idea of having a woman as CEO of a major company: 59% on average in the G7, versus 47% among men. However, not all women are comfortable with this idea: fewer than half in France, Germany and Japan. But across all the countries, women are more comfortable than men, with differences in some cases as wide as 18 points (Italy).
It is also worth noting that this questioning of a woman’s suitability to exercise power, does not depend on the size of the company nor on the sector. The same is not true of political power. In five of the G7 countries, respondents are more comfortable with the prospect of a woman being mayor of a small town, than mayor of the country’s capital. Japan and the United Kingdom are exceptions: Japanese people are uncomfortable with both situations, while the British accept both without distinction.
There is no significant difference in terms of comfort levels towards a woman being the mayor of the country’s capital or head of government. On average, fewer than half of men are entirely at ease with both situations, compared with 60% of women being "very comfortable."
Specifically, there are four different categories of comfort levels with women in political power across the G7 countries:
This question of the exercise of political power is of great importance when it comes to assessing women’s suitability for leadership, since it is one area which is highly visible among the general public. To understand the changes observed in 2020 versus 2019, it is worth considering two contrasting factors.
On one hand, there is the context of the pandemic, and its impact on people’s daily lives, and therefore their views. COVID-19 has exacerbated inequality in the distribution of household tasks between men and women – the latter being more likely to reduce their working hours, or to work from home in order to mitigate the impact of school closures. This may well have compounded deeply ingrained stereotypes in some countries.
On the other hand, we must take into consideration the example set by women in positions of political power in terms of influencing respondents’ perceptions.
Members of the general public are unlikely to have an informed opinion about the performance of those few women at the helm of companies in the sectors covered in our study.
It should also be noted that the changes in the Reykjavik Index – up or down – observed in 2020 vs. 2019, generally apply to all of the 23 sectors, suggesting that this is an overall impression, not an opinion based on experience.
What is noticeable in the countries where the index has gone down, is the reinforcement of stereotypes, where men are more closely associated with so-called male sectors, and women more with supposedly female sectors.
Yet the only truly tangible experience of power that the respondents have - and which might influence their opinion - is that of political power.
The recent history of the Reykjavik Index offers some further interesting revelations. In 2020, the score declined in Germany across all sectors, except for one: the holding of political office. Angela Merkel, apparently in a position of weakness at the beginning of the year, regained the confidence of her fellow citizens in the second half, thanks to her management of the pandemic.2 But this credit, which contributes to the belief that women are as well suited to govern in politics as men, has not extended to other sectors.
In 2019, in the United Kingdom, the Reykjavik Index had fallen sharply to 73, down from 77 in 2018. Theresa May had just stepped down as Prime Minister, having failed to gain the support of a parliamentary majority for her Brexit deal. The index had declined across all sectors – and dropped particularly sharply among men.
A hypothesis emerges clearly from these two cases: in one, the success of Angela Merkel is no more than the success of one woman, in one sector; in the other, the challenges of one female leader – Theresa May – may have casted doubt in society, for a short while, over the suitability of women to lead, regardless of sector.
This is only a hypothesis and there is nothing in the Reykjavik Index data to definitively prove it. There is nothing to refute it either.
In any event, this hypothesis is worthy of consideration, since it has serious implications. This means that the end-state of parity is not just the equal distribution of leadership positions between men and women, but also requires that we stop judging women in such positions by criteria that consist in ‘feminising’ their exercise of power. This raises a question about the arguments that should be presented to build on the progress in women’s access to leadership.
To some extent, this is a pitfall of the lack of gender parity at various levels of power. Very often, the appointment of a woman to a position of power, is greeted as an event in itself.
This was the case with the recent designation of Kamala Harris. But the result often is that the very skills, careers and characteristics of these women that have led to their appointment, are downplayed; whereas these would be immediately highlighted in the case of a man.
On this path to parity, attitudes must change too.
In the G7 countries, between 43% (Japan) and 64% (Canada) of women believe that there would be a positive impact if more women held positions of political power. Among men, this opinion varies between 30% (Japan) and 45% (Italy). Yet these are still countries where the representation of women in the lower house of parliament is only between 10% (Japan) and 40% (France).3
We would be delighted if the Reykjavik Index was to regain ground in 2021. However, what we have learnt from the comparison of the data collected since 2018, is that it will take a long time to overcome the stereotypes that affect representations of women in leadership positions, because they are so deeply rooted.
This requires patience, but also swift action, at multiple levels.
If we want to be able to disregard the gender of leaders, then those people – mostly men – who confer leadership roles, must consider it commonplace and normal for these to be held by women – and soon.
If we want to avoid unconscious biases becoming pernicious obstacles in the career paths of women, we must quickly ask ourselves what it is about the education of our children that persuades them that certain roles or sectors suit one gender better than the other.
And finally, if we want to avoid the failure of one woman in a leadership role raising doubts about all women leaders, we need to learn to celebrate the appointment of women without reducing them to their status as women.
1: See the article ‘Gender diversity in corporate leadership in the EU’ 2: PUBLIC Journal 01 - From impact to recovery: COVID-19 and the citizen response 3. OECD's Women in politics
