East Asia Forum Quarterly Vol.11 No.1: Investing in Women

The Board Gender Diversity in ASEAN study advances the case that having women in business leadership positions is good for company performance,.

Discrimination against women in the workplace is a persistent structural and social issue that can start as early as the hiring process.

The third State of the World’s Fathers report reveals new research on men’s caregiving from 11 countries, with additional cross-country analysis of data from over 30 countries.

The business case for paternity leave is also compelling. The benefits of paternity leave extend to parents, children and business.

This report shows that gender diversity is a smart business strategy: the lack of gender diversity may act as a barrier to enhanced business performance.

This fact sheet discusses the benefits of paternity leave, the state of paternity leave in Myanmar and the policy challenges that are preventing the advancement paternity leave in the country.

This fact sheet discusses the benefits of paternity leave, the state of paternity leave in Vietnam and the policy challenges that are preventing the advancement paternity leave in the country.

This fact sheet discusses the benefits of paternity leave, the state of paternity leave in Indonesia and the policy challenges that are preventing the advancement paternity leave in the country.

This fact sheet discusses the benefits of paternity leave, the state of paternity leave in the Philippines and the policy challenges that are preventing the advancement paternity leave in the country.

Despite persistent gender inequalities in all three countries, Investing in Women’s  survey data reveals that within this demographic there are many positive gender perceptions that can be leveraged to advocate for greater norm shifts: Women and men show similar levels of ambition to reach senior positions.

The value of women’s unpaid work in the Philippines is worth trillions of pesos, according to a senior research fellow of the country’s premier think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).

This report explains the 4 key interplaying factors – individual, family, corporation culture and societal pressures – that puts a pressure to the rise of women in the corporate ladder.

This report delivers new insights into the role of gender in brand strategy, creative response and media targeting, and includes analysis of consumer responses to tens of thousands of brands, campaigns and ads, as well as a global survey of marketers.

This report explores the link between financial returns and gender diversity; the lack of women in the industry; and steps needed to achieve gender balance.

This report summarises the findings and recommendations of the external review of Component 2 (C2) on impact investing of the Investing in Women Initiative (IW) funded by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

This updated Investment Design Document for Investing in Women reflects the opportunities and constraints of the evolving operational environments; the policy and budgetary settings of the Australian Government; and the lessons from Phase 1 implementation as identified through an independent Review process.

This report portrays the urgency of the changes that the world of work is facing, and provides ideas on how to manage and leverage these transformations. It considers how to strengthen democratic space for social dialogue and how business models can be better aligned with a human-centred agenda.

This report benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, education, health and political criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups.

This toolkit for gender lens investing supports the design of an investment strategy with considerations for how gender dynamics might present risks and opportunities. It provides a framework to consider building a gender lens into new or existing strategies.

This fact sheet/booklet provides a detailed picture of the state of gender equality in Australia’s workplaces. The report is compiled by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency using 5 years of reporting data.

This report examines the situation of women in Asia and the Pacific and analyses progress and obstacles in terms of gender equality in the world of work.

This report summarises the current situation of women in Indonesia and discusses how family responsibilities are holding women back in the workplace.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of impact investing activity and trends between 2007 and 2017 in 11 countries: Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

This report takes a comprehensive look at unpaid and paid care work and its relationship with the changing world of work. A key focus is the persistent gender inequalities in households and the labour market, which are inextricably linked with care work.

This report takes a comprehensive look at unpaid and paid care work in Asia and the Pacific and its relationship with the changing world of work. A key focus is the persistent gender inequalities in households and the labour market, which are inextricably linked with care work.

This report from the McKinsey Global Institute explores the challenge of gender inequality in Asia Pacific and considers what it will take to deliver gender parity in the region.

This report analyses the gender earnings gap in Vietnam and explores why women choose to work in lower paid occupations.

This report provides an overview of the gender pay gap in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, drawing on a number of recent studies.

The article provides an overview of McKinsey’s research in the last 10 years on women in the workplace. It presents a strong business case for gender equality while also presenting the many barriers that have been preventing progress.

This report presents key findings of interventions promoting small and medium enterprises as a means to create more and better jobs.

This report offers guidance on how to integrate gender-responsive approaches into APEC Fora, Strategic and Work Plans, Annual Reports and Projects. It complements the principles outlined in the 1999 Framework for the Integration of Women in APEC.

This report discusses some of the issues and policies relating to skills development and labour markets in the APEC region. It analyses how economic changes can contribute to structural unemployment, and what can be done to mitigate the impacts of these changes.

This report presents current statistics on representation of women in key leadership positions in the Philippine government and industry. It reveals a dearth of female representation and discusses recommendations to address this.

The report benchmarks 144 countries on their progress towards gender parity and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups.

This report exposes misconceptions facing women entrepreneurs in Vietnam and elucidates the opportunities for banks and related service providers to meet their needs.

This report analyses the policy landscape, identifies gaps, and proposes recommendations to advance the role of women in the labour market, as entrepreneurs and business owners, presenting best practice examples from both the ASEAN region and the OECD.

This report analyses interviews with executives from over 25 prominent companies in Southeast Asia to understand their perspectives on diversity, the obstacles they have faced, and the effectiveness of activities they have launched to increase gender diversity across their organisations.

This report presents a global overview of trends related to equal caregiving and provides a synthesis of global data sources on related topics including unpaid care work, sexual and reproductive health and rights, maternal health, men’s violence against women, and child development.

This report examines the global and regional labour market trends and gaps, including in labour force participation rates, unemployment rates, employment status as well as sectoral and occupational segregation.

This report provides an overview of the international standards on women and work, and explores to what extent they have been implemented in the Philippines.

This report concentrates on the significance given to female entrepreneurship in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, and on the policies pursued to promote it.

This report provides an overview of the state of feminism and gender equality around the world based on survey results from across 24 countries.

This report surveys the role of women in business and considers the issue of risk and reward. The report explores the different ways in which men and women see risk and opportunity, and how they act differently as a result.

This report provides a first-ever account of global attitudes and perceptions of women and men regarding women and work, based on the 2016 Gallup World Poll.

This factsheet from the Philippine Statistics Authority focuses on the latest statistical updates on women and men in the country. The 2017 edition contains 84 indicators covering 14 socio-economic sectors and gender concerns.

This report looks into the gender-specific effects of trade liberalisation on work participation and hours of work, as well as primary participation in domestic duties in Indonesia.

This report examines Vietnam’s economy through a gender lens, analysing the distribution of productive resources across different groups of women and men; gender segmentation in the labour market; and female workers’ working conditions and pay.

This report is the fourth in a series of statistical handbooks and presents the available and relevant gender statistics in the Philippines from 2000 to 2015.

This report reviews the key issues, policy mechanisms and international evidence with respect to closing the gender pay gap. The core focus is on wage setting institutions and their impact on inclusive and gender equitable labour markets.

This report explores the link that exists between diversity and improved business performance, and the measures the progress made on structural changes and development of women talent.

This article examines this board-level gender diversity issue for the case of the firms traded in the Philippine Stock Exchange during the period 2003 to 2014.

This report examines the extent to which men and women have adopted and embraced digital technologies, and the influence that has had on their education, employment and advancement.

This report addresses the question of why progresses has been so slow on gender equality in Vietnam, exploring the challenges and barriers that hinder the efforts in bridging the gap between genders.

This report provides the latest data on women’s position in labour markets, examines the factors behind these trends and explores the policy drivers for transformative change.

This report presents findings from a review of pension policies and their gender dimensions in eight countries of the East Asia region where the aging of the population is already advanced or expected to accelerate in coming years.

This article explores attitudes to work and family roles among senior university students in 2004; the year when people were preparing to elect a President directly for the first time in history, with the incumbent President the first woman in the role.

University-educated Indonesian women are expected to generate additional income for the family as ‘secondary earners’ by choosing a career path that does not interfere with their primary roles as wives and mothers.
Policies advocating more egalitarian marriage roles would ultimately lead to more equitable outcomes in the labour market.

This report brings together the most recent statistics, trends and information on the situation of women in business and management in order to provide insight into practicalities, realities and understandings of companies in the Asia-Pacific region.

This report looks into the complex and varied causes behind the gap in economic empowerment between males and females across Asia and the Pacific, then analyses the available evidence for its implications to economic growth.

This report aims to provide a reliable estimate of the economic costs of domestic violence in Vietnam, including potential opportunity and productivity loss to the national economy.

This report provides a detailed review of the issues, theory and evidences around the pay gap between mothers and non-mothers, and between mothers and fathers. The motherhood pay gap is distinct from the gender pay gap, which measures the pay gap between all women and all men in the workforce.

This report brings together available data and statistics to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date and global picture of women in the business world and in management positions.

This report ranks 108 countries according to the level of discrimination against women and girls in social institutions and gives examples of the correlations between discriminatory social institutions and key development outcomes.

This report looks into the relationship between the level of and company financial performance based on financial data and leadership demographics from hundreds of organisations and thousands of executives in the United Kingdom, Canada, Latin America, and the United States.

This review provides a detailed analysis of the key international literature on the outcomes of maternity protection in small and medium-sized enterprises, and addresses how maternity protection in SMEs can generate positive outcomes for enterprises as well as broader society.

This report explores how Indonesia’s economic growth and rapid urbanisation in recent years is contributing to the gender income gap. The study examines how monthly wages are distributed between male and female workers and tests whether a wage gap exists between them.

This report documents the nature and extent of gender inequalities in the Filipino labour market. The report also shares promising initiatives that have been developed to counter gender discrimination and promote equality for working men and women.

This report aims to provide a reliable estimate of the economic costs of domestic violence in Viet Nam, including potential opportunity and productivity loss to the national economy.

This report analyses the traditional, regulatory, and internal gender-based obstacles that influence Vietnamese women entrepreneurs in starting and running their businesses and provides policy implications for promoting women’s entrepreneurship and gender equality in Vietnam.

This study explores the extent of change and regional differences in gender roles in the Vietnamese family based on innovative surveys in northern and southern Vietnam.

This report provides a detailed analysis of the roles, constraints, obstacles, opportunities and development of women entrepreneurs in Vietnam.

This article provides a detailed analysis of “Vietnamese feminism,” and explores the concept of a positive collective identity of Vietnamese women – something with which all Vietnamese women can identify regardless of locale, generation, or ideology.

This report summarises the current situation of women in the Philippines and discusses their dual responsibilities in the family and the workplace.

This report discusses the connection between cultural expectations around gender roles and the degree of gender diversity in the workplace in Indonesia and the Philippines.

This is the 2^nd edition in a series of reports exploring the difficulties around raising capital for women’s small to medium enterprises, and the role that impact investing can play in achieving women’s economic empowerment.

This report considers the relationship between labour legislation and women’s economic empowerment, and examines that current status of labour laws across the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The 1^st in a series, this publication focuses on Ernst and Young’s (EY)’s commentary on topics such as tailoring finance for women led or owned SMEs (women’s SMEs) and differences in investment models; and consideration as to which model maybe preferable for women’s SMEs.

This report examines the impact of gender diversity on corporate performance. It uses a global dataset of firms to analyse this correlation.

This report provides a framework for monitoring Investing in Women’s contribution to the goal of accelerating women’s economic empowerment in Southeast Asia and contributing to inclusive economic growth.

This country context paper provides an overview of women’s contribution to Myanmar’s economy as farmers, entrepreneurs and wage workers, and identifies key barriers to women’s economic empowerment in Myanmar.

This country context paper provides an overview of women’s contribution to the Vietnamese economy as farmers, entrepreneurs and wage workers, and identifies key barriers to women’s economic empowerment Vietnam.

This country context paper provides an overview of Indonesian women’s participation in the labour market and as entrepreneurs, and identifies key barriers to women’s economic empowerment in Indonesia.

This country context paper provides an overview of women’s participation in the labour market and as entrepreneurs in the Philippines, and identifies key barriers to women’s economic empowerment in the Philippines.

This report explores the degree to which individual directors are sitting on multiple corporate boards in Vietnam, and the impact this has on the gender diversity of the country’s business sector.

This report analyses aid flows to Southeast Asia, and the degree to which overseas development funding is spent on projects promoting women’s economic empowerment.

This report analyses Vietnam’s adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in relation to women’s rights as workers.

This report analyses the Philippines’ adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in relation to women’s rights as workers.

This report examines the state of small to medium enterprises in Vietnam, and the contribution that women-owned businesses make to the Vietnamese economy.

This report examines the state of small to medium enterprises in Indonesia, and the contribution that women-owned businesses make to the Indonesian economy.

This report analyses Myanmar’s adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in relation to women’s rights as workers.

This report analyses Indonesia’s adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in relation to women’s rights as workers.

This report showcases Tòhe: a woman-owned social enterprise in Vietnam. The case study tells the story of the business and explores the success and challenges it faces.

This report provides an overview of the international standards on women and work, and explores to what extent they have been implemented in Vietnam.

This report explores the degree to which individual directors are sitting on multiple corporate boards in the Philippines, and the impact this has on the gender diversity of the country’s business sector.

This report explores the degree to which individual directors are sitting on multiple corporate boards in Indonesia, and the impact this has on the gender diversity of the country’s business sector.

This report provides an overview of the international standards on women and work, and explores to what extent they have been implemented in Myanmar.

This report provides an overview of the international standards on women and work, and explores to what extent they have been implemented in the Philippines.

This report provides an overview of the international standards on women and work, and explores to what extent they have been implemented in Indonesia.

This report provides an overview of the Philippine Business Coalition for Women’s Empowerment, and explores its key characteristics, challenges and opportunities.

This report highlights key research findings on gender diversity in corporate governance, and explores opportunities to improve women’s participation on boards.

This report explores key concepts around gender equality and empowerment, emphasising the dual importance of gender equality policies and an enabling institutional environment.

This report provides an overview of the Indonesia Business Coalition for Women’s Empowerment, and explores its key characteristics, challenges and opportunities.

This report provides an overview of corporate governance principles and structures, and explores how corporate governance connectedness in Vietnam can influence women’s economic empowerment.

This report provides an overview of corporate governance principles and structures, and explores how corporate governance connectedness in the Philippines can influence women’s economic empowerment.

This report provides an overview of corporate governance principles and structures, and explores how corporate governance connectedness in Indonesia can influence women’s economic empowerment.