Workplace Gender Equality (WGE) in Southeast Asian Businesses
Summary
This report investigates whether formal workplace equality for women and men results in equal career outcomes across 38 businesses in Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The report highlights the persistent gender disparities despite training opportunities and strong policy frameworks. It explores the influence of cultural biases and organizational policies on career progression, recruitment, and retention, and provides recommendations for improving WGE. The study uses secondary analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from Investing in Women, covering staff perceptions and company practices. Key findings include the need for stronger WGE policy frameworks, gender-balanced recruitment and promotion policies, enhanced workplace flexibility, and increased WGE awareness training.
Highlights
- Strengthening laws on sexual harassment and equal pay can significantly enhance Workplace Gender Equality (WGE) in South East Asia.
- Companies can boost gender equality by enhancing transparency and detail in their WGE policies.
- Integrating GRI standards into mandatory reporting, creating comprehensive WGE reporting criteria, and establishing a WGE index can advance WGE efforts.
- Better WGE practices can lead to improved company performance and contribute positively to national economic growth.
- Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Vietnam show varied progress in WGE, with significant potential for improvement.
- In Indonesia, there is a positive relationship between received training and promotion percentages for men. However, there is almost no impact of training on women’s promotion outcomes.
- In Myanmar, men’s best fit is steeper than women. Promotion increases with training however, not as high as Philippines.
- In the Philippines, men start off at an advantaged position in comparison to women with no training. However, the impact of training is similar for both genders.
- In Vietnam, men are at an advantaged position prior to training. Differences are minimised as women receive training.
- Companies with stronger policy frameworks also identify as having a good employee gender balance across all management levels.
- A consistent finding across all four countries was that married women, primary carers and mothers are found to be impacted negatively due to gender stereotypes that associate home care responsibilities with women and thus reduce retention and limit their career progression outcomes in comparison with men.
