Overview
Banking attracts and promotes women
Banks have committed to achieving parity. Positive action has borne fruit. In 2014 more than 46% of managers were women.
Banking has a predominantly female workforce. Women make up 57.1% of all staff and 46% of managers(1). This is a high score: by way of comparison, women make up only 29.6% of managers at the top 60 French companies according to the Skema Observatory which monitors women in the workforce(2). The banking profession is beating its own targets in this respect. The 2011 sector salary agreement set a target of 44% women managers in banks by the end of 2014. Mobilising everyone in the industry meant we were able to go beyond this threshold.
Attractive career prospects
In the banking sector in 2014, more than half of new hires were women, with an average age of 30. A quarter were qualified to at least master’s degree level. Nearly one in five women worked part-time – usually doing at least 80% of standard working hours – compared to just over 2% of men.
The banking sector offers women attractive career opportunities, both in pay and career prospects. More than 60% of those promoted in 2014 were women.
Banks also have a head start when it comes to women in the very top posts. In 2015, the average proportion of women on boards of directors or supervisory boards was 42.6% at the big listed French banks in the CAC 40, compared to 34.6% for all CAC 40 companies (3).
The banking sector is, then, ahead of the Copé-Zimmermann target which requires CAC 40 companies to have 40% of female members on both boards by January 1, 2017.
(1) Annual AFB survey of member banks. Data at 31/12/2014.
(2) 2015 report.
(3) Ethics & Boards, January 2016.
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