Female fund managers won’t achieve equal status with their male counterparts for another 200 years at the rate promotions are going, according to a recent report.
That’s no exaggeration — Citywire’s 2020 Alpha Female Report calculated that portfolio managers would reach gender parity in 2215 at this rate, despite pressure on fund management groups from clients to add women as front line fund managers. Currently, there are just 1,762 females among the world’s 16,018 active fund managers, according to the report, or about 11 percent — up one percentage point from 10 percent four years ago.
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“Despite new initiatives to attract more female talent into asset management, the numbers remain woefully low five years on,” said Nisha Long, head of cross-border investment research at Citywire, in the report. “We’ve seen companies hiring more females and incentives put in place. However, it’s not just about attracting women into this industry – it’s about how to keep them in fund management once they start.”
Part of the problem is a high turnover rate for female fund managers: 42 percent in 2020 compared to 40 percent in 2019. In comparison, the turnover rate for men was 27 percent. More than 70 percent of 35 female fund managers who have left firms in the past ten years left to manage funds elsewhere, while the remaining 30 percent was a combination of retirements and career changes.
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“One reason why turnover is so high could be the maternity leave effect,” Long said in the report. “When fund managers return to work after maternity leave many need flexible working or reduced hours. Sometimes it may have been easier for them to take on a different role within the firm that allowed them this flexibility. While some have left fund management entirely, for those that moved to different firms a greater level of flexibility on offer could well be a factor.”
Some companies are better than others, however, and the report cited Schroders as an asset management company that has committed and delivered on measurable policies. The company has a low turnover rate for female fund managers and is making progress towards a target of 30 percent of females in senior management.
The report also noted fewer and fewer funds are run by a single manager, with firms increasingly turning to teams of managers. There, mixed teams of men and women managers have grown by almost 60 percent. The future, it seems, is female and male.
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