Women and business: a key partnership for the business sector

The debate on gender equity in the business world remains a constant issue in the corporate sector. Only a strong commitment and concrete actions can finally place women in the positions they truly deserve. But what is the reality they face?

Globally, women make up 42% of the workforce. However, female representation declines as one moves up the corporate ladder. According to the latest 2024 Global Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum, women hold 36.4% of leadership positions worldwide—almost a full point less than in 2022, when the figure was 37.5%.

Despite this slight decline, there is a general perception of global progress. For instance, Europe has made significant strides in gender parity, achieving 75% equality between men and women in this report. Iceland leads the way, closing 93.5% of its total gender gap. Other countries that have eliminated over 80% of gender inequality include Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Ireland.

North America ranks second in gender parity, with a score of 74.8%, having improved by 4.3 percentage points since 2006. At the bottom of the rankings are the Middle East and North Africa, with 61.7%.  However, countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made notable improvements.

McKinsey & Company has been studying gender diversity in leadership teams since 2015. In their latest 2023 report, Diversity Matters Even More, they surveyed 1,265 companies from 23 countries and six global regions. The findings reveal a consistent upward trend in female representation on leadership teams. Currently, one in five members of executive teams worldwide are women, a third more than five years ago. Eight out of ten companies surveyed now have at least one woman on their executive team, and seven out of ten have female representation above 10%.

Since the release of Diversity Wins in 2020, diversity has seen its largest increase in a decade, alongside the highest level of female representation at the top of corporate hierarchies.

The latest report also explores the link between leadership diversity and business performance. One of the conclusions is that greater female representation on executive teams correlates with holistic growth, increased social impact, and higher employee satisfaction. The study also notes that “diversity of perspectives and approaches in senior management fosters more creative solutions and enables better adaptation to market changes.”

To promote gender parity in the workplace, the joint initiative by UN Women and the United Nations Global Compact led to the creation of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP).

These principles provide companies with a framework to advance gender equality and empower women within the workplace, the market, and the community.

The seven principles are:

1. Promote gender equality through leadership at the highest levels of corporations.
2. Ensure equal opportunities for men and women, respect, defense of human rights, and nondiscrimination in the workplace.
3. Ensure the health, safety, and well-being of all workers
4. Promote education, training, and professional development for women.
5. Implement practices that empower women in supply chains, marketing, and enterprise development.
6. Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy.
7. Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality.

At MAPFRE, we are committed to these principles and have implemented a range of initiatives to foster gender equality. We have a Diversity and Equal Opportunity Policy and a Diversity Strategy called Inclusion for Sustainable Growth, based on the belief that diversity is not just a challenge to manage but an opportunity for sustainable growth.

These initiatives help us progress in achieving equality, particularly by increasing the representation of women in leadership roles, through what we call Women’s Leadership Networks. In practice, these networks facilitate leadership discussions on the role of women in key social issues, featuring participants from the business, economic, and social sectors. We also organize workshops and internal meetings for women to identify key strategies that can support their professional advancement.

Notably, the Board of Directors is gender-balanced, with seven women and seven men, in addition to the Chairman. In 2024, over 50% of internal promotions and new hires were women. “We remain committed to removing any barriers that prevent individuals—both men and women—from reaching their full potential, and to recognizing and rewarding talent and effort fairly and equitably,” said Juan Carlos Rondeau, Deputy General Manager of the Corporate People and Organization Area at MAPFRE.

There are many examples of initiatives that can be implemented within organizations to not only achieve parity but also empower women to take their rightful place in the corporate sector. For example, we are participants in the Target Gender Equality program, a global initiative aimed at accelerating progress toward SDG 5 (Gender Equality), and we are founding partners of ClosinGap, an organization made up of leading companies that analyze inequality gaps in order to quantify them and speed up their closure.

These efforts show that the “glass ceiling” is increasingly within reach of being broken, as demonstrated by these figures and initiatives. By replacing this barrier with an environment of equity, society as a whole will benefit.

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