Day #43: Gender Pay Gap

We are almost at the end of the blog... so it's time to bring up again an important subject: the gender pay gap. To do so, we will use an article from the Financial Times which uses data for masters in management rankings over the past decade, for alumni three years after graduation. Some facts illustrated with figures:

• Three years after graduating with a masters in management, the median salary for men is higher than for women in every sector of employment. Healthcare and finance have the greatest gender pay gap.
• When the pay of men and women is compared by seniority, women are ahead only in mid-level management positions.
• Finance and consultancy have always been the top destinations of Masters in Management graduates. Together, they represent 45-50% of the alumni.
• Law, finance and consultancy are the sectors with the highest salaries.
• Most alumni who moved to a different country after graduating in MiM see a rise in salary, specially in healthcare. Law is the only sector where movers see a lower mean salary.

Image from ft.com

Day #24: Larger number of women in investing roles

It is good to keep hearing positive news about gender equality in all fields. Some days ago I shared a post about an interview to women working in project management, and today it is the turn to say something about portfolio management. In this case, it is a study from Preqin which says that 23% of hedge fund investment team and portfolio management positions are held by women, compared to 6% two years earlier. 

Getty Images

However, there are some bad (or neutral?) news as well. The highest growth in female-held positions was in investor relations and marketing, traditional areas for women. About 48% of marketing employees worldwide were women in 2019!

Read the full note here: Preqin seeing larger number of women in investing roles

Day #17: Women & Project Management

Today's post is a bit off-topic, since it doesn't focus on Portfolio Management but on Women in PM. I found a combined interview in Project Management Today to Manon Bradley, Sarah Colemna and Teri Okoro, all of them highly experienced project managers. It may be a bit old, before the #MeToo movement, yet the content is still very interesting and makes us think about the role of women in PM, what is happening now and what comes next. 

Picture from fifteendesign.co.uk

Besides, it is not only about how many women work in project management roles or how to achieve a better equality, but it includes the figures from a report about Diversity and Retention. The numbers are quite striking:

• Just 28% of surveyed project managers said they are happy in their current jobs. 
• 67% of project managers are actively looking for a new job. 
• 55% of project managers seeking a new position report that “finding opportunities that align with their skills and experience” is their greatest challenge. 
• 46% of those seeking new posts believe that the “remuneration levels on offer are too low”. 
• 75% of working projects managers have not received a pay rise above the rate of inflation this year (93% of project managers working in the public sector). 
• 74% of private sector respondents anticipate some level of growth in their current organisation during 2014. 
• 55% of respondent involved in recruiting programme and project managers in 2014 reported that filling roles has been difficult due to a lack of suitable applicants and restrictions on available remuneration.

These results are from 2014, yet they look a bit discouraging. It's one more reason to focus on the education to be a good project manager, and try to get the most out of one's skills. As one of the interviewees says, "There’s a lot more awareness and recognition around project management as a skill and a function and how it can help to move organisations towards where they want to go. It’s no longer just about construction and heavy industry."