Publication: The Leadership Gender Gap in Banking: Insights from Ethiopia
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2022
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2023-01-08
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The global banking industry has a well-known and well-documented leadership gender gap. The financial sector is a popular career choice for women, yet their representation drops precipitously at the higher rungs of the career ladder. An IMF study thus estimates that only two percent of banking CEOs are globally females. This EFI Note adds to the literature on gender in the financial sector by providing a first assessment of the gender leadership gap in the Ethiopian banking industry. The authors conducted structured interviews with senior management in each institution and collected human resource (HR) data to examine the gender composition of the workforce across different functions and levels of seniority, and to understand processes for recruitment, promotion, and leadership appointments. High-level data was also collected from publicly available source. on each of the remaining commercial bank. A second round of data collection in the form of a staff survey with experimental elements is currently underway. Among other things, it will allow for a more detailed analysis of ‘supply-side’ factors such as gender differences in attitudes and ambition. The remainder of this EFI Note is divided into two parts. Section 2 looks at HR outcomes, summarizing the evidence on the gender gap in financial sector careers globally before offering key statistics from the Ethiopian banking industry. Section 3 then looks at some of the HR processes behind these outcomes, outlining differences between male and female staff both in the early stages of their careers (recruitment and choice of functional area) and at later points in time (career progression and leadership selection).
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“Weis, Toni Johannes; Rawlins, Marlon Rolston; Tumtu, Kenno Itana; Coleman, Rachel Dawn. 2022. The Leadership Gender Gap in Banking: Insights from Ethiopia. Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Insight - Finance;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38389 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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