Forty three percent (43%) of senior management positions in Philippine companies are held by women.
The Philippines took the top spot among 28 countries in a ranking of the percentage of women in senior management, according to London-based Grant Thornton in its end-2023 survey.
The survey, based on interviews conducted in the final quarter of 2023, covers 4,891 midsize companies — 90% of which have between 50 and 2,500 employees — from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. It defines senior management roles as positions ranging from CEOs and chief operating officers to board members and finance chiefs.
The Philippines is often at or near the top of the survey, now on its 20th year. It was No. 2 in 2023, No. 4 in 2022, and No. 1 in 2021 and 2020. Three other Southeast Asian nations placed in the Top 10 in 2023: Thailand, No. 3; Malaysia, No. 7; and Indonesia, No. 10 (asia.nikkei.com, March 16, 2024).
As for other Asia-Pacific nations, Australia ranked No. 8, but South Korea at No. 27, and Japan at No. 28, fell to the very bottom of the list, demonstrating the unwavering male dominance in those societies, the survey noted. Globally, the female share of management positions has crept closer to parity for four years in a row, to 33% in the last survey.
“Women have entered the (general) workforce in increasing numbers over the past several decades, climbing from 32.7% participation in 1948 to 56.2% in 2020, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consequently, more women have reached executive positions, and women-owned businesses are on the rise. However, the numbers for women executives still haven’t reached parity. According to Fortune magazine, only 44 Fortune 500 companies are helmed by women (in 2023). That rate, although a record, does not reflect the current state of the workforce,” according to Washington State University MBA research (onlinemba.wsu.edu, Nov. 8, 2023).
Male CEOs outnumbered female CEOs 17 to 1 in Fortune 500 companies in 2015. In 2021, only 41 women were CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. In S&P 500 companies, only 5% of CEO positions were held by women in 2019, according to the market data reports (gitnux.org/, Dec. 20, 2023). Since 2015, the number of women in the C-suite has increased from 17% to 28%. Women represent roughly one in four C-suite leaders, the “Women in the Workplace 2023” McKinsey Report says (mckinsey.com, Oct. 5, 2023).
The statistics on women in top executive positions and gender parity in the higher-echelons of the workplace are mostly based on US and Canadian surveys and researched analyses, but the global environment has been gradually homogenized, and the less developed countries have updated and adjusted to the worldwide concern for equality and the rights of women. The aforementioned Grant Thornton report on Filipina CEOs commended the Philippines’ early efforts to address gender issues, including the Magna Carta of Women Act of 2009, which guarantees women economic and social rights (asia.nikkei.com, op. cit.).
Yet at the March 19 symposium, “Inclusion through Women and Water,” held in celebration of International Women’s Month and World Water Day, panel speakers decried the claimed equality of women in the workplace. “Gender parity — not yet, but we’re getting there,” said Rogelio Singson, President and CEO of Metro-Pacific Tollways Corp. (and the former Secretary of Public Works and Highways in the term of President Benigno C. Aquino III). “Yes, there are now many more women in executive positions, but note that middle management is mostly men, and lower management is mostly women,” Salma Rasul, Programs Director of the Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy (PCID), pointed out.
The 2023 McKinsey Report made the same basic observation that “hard-earned gains (on women’s advancement to top posts) are encouraging yet fragile: slow progress for women at the manager and director levels (hitting the ‘Glass Ceiling’) — representation has grown only three and four percentage points, respectively — creates a weak middle in the pipeline for employees who represent the vast majority of women in line for senior-leadership positions. This is called the ‘Broken-rung’ effect in management hierarchy.
“Because of the gender disparity in early promotions, men end up holding 60% of manager-level positions in a typical company, while women occupy 40%. Since men significantly outnumber women, there are fewer women to promote to senior managers, and the number of women decreases at every subsequent level.
“And then, director-level women are leaving at a higher rate than in past years — and at a notably higher rate than men at the same level. As a result of these two dynamics, there are fewer women in line for top positions” (mckinsey.com, op. cit.).
Women executives, even those at the top positions, and down to those in the lower levels of the business organization, have a greater propensity to resign or leave their positions, more than the men, because of the prioritization of family and the intangible, non-monetary benefits or trade-offs in employment and leadership — sort of indicative of the intuitive nurturing for others with the innate mother-instinct in women.
But it is this “emotional intelligence” that gives a distinct leadership edge to women, Forbes magazine says. “Emotionally intelligent CEOs understand that business is personal and rooted in relationships, and by proactively fostering those relationships, they also build their businesses. So much so that recent research confirms that women are rising to the top tiers of companies due in large part to their emotional intelligence” (forbes.com, March 17, 2022).
A Korn Ferry study found that female CEOs were “more likely to engage the power of teams” than their male counterparts. They scored “significantly higher than the benchmark group on humility — indicative of a consistent lack of self-promotion, an expressed appreciation for others, and a tendency to share the credit” — and “were more likely to leverage others to achieve desired results,” says Suneera Madhani, CEO and founder of multiple seven-figure businesses, including a payment technology company, and a CEO School, a top 0.5% business podcast worldwide for women (Ibid.).
“Companies with women at the C-level typically have profits that surpass those led by men, according to a 2019 S&P Global analysis. The same study demonstrated that organizations with female CEOs have more success producing ‘superior stock price performance, compared with the market average.’ And in their first two years in the CEO role, these women’s companies saw a “20% boost in stock price momentum,” the Forbes article, “Five Reasons Why Women Can Make Great CEOs” reported (Ibid.).
Filipino women executives will be good for business and the country, in today’s fierce global competitiveness.
Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.