The World Economic Forum’s Corporate Gender Gap Report coincides with the 99th International Women’s Day.

Female talent is being underutilised in some of the world’s biggest employers, is the finding from the 2010 World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Corporate Gender Gap Report, as the gap continues to widen between men and women.

The report is based on a survey of 600 heads of human resource departments at some of the world’s largest employers across 20 countries which included Austria, Brazil, Canada, Netherlands, the UK and the United States (US).

The US (52%), Spain (48%), Canada (46%) and Finland (44%) came out on top in the report as having the highest percentage of women employees at all levels, compared to India (23%), Japan (24%), Turkey (26%) and Austria (29%) at the other end of the scale.

There was also a wide disparity within industry sectors, the study found. Financial Services and Insurance leads the way with women employees making up 60% of the workforce, in stark contradiction to the automotive and mining industries with just 18% of female employees.

“The findings of The Corporate Gender Gap Report are an alarm bell on International Women’s Day that the corporate world is not doing enough to achieve gender equality,” commented Saadia Zahidi, Co-author of the report and head of the Forum’s Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme.

“While a certain set of companies in Scandinavia, the US and the UK are indeed leaders in integrating women, the idea that most corporations have become gender-balanced or women-friendly is still a myth.” 

Some of the barriers to women leadership were identified by respondents to the study as “general norms and cultural practices in your country”; “masculine or patriarchal corporate cultures”; and “lack of role models”.

More than 30% of respondents in France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and the UK believe that the economic downturn will only continue to exasperate the issue.

Today’s publication coincides with the 99th International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on 8 March. This year the day aptly runs with the theme ‘Equal Rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all’, with events running all over the world to raise the issue of gender inequality.

Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, remarked: “Until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals – peace, security, sustainable development – stand in poverty.”