For this months’ blog post we thought we’d share the outcome of one of the studies we ran recently based on gender equality in senior management and employee sentiment benchmarks.
Gender Equality Ratios in Senior Management vs. Gender Equality Sentiment in Employee Reviews.
Abstract
This study examines the relationship between negative sentiment regarding gender equality and female representation in senior management positions.
Results Summary
We observe a substantial variation in sentiment signal strength when measuring feedback on gender equality in employee reviews, with the strongest signal being 5 times more intense than the weakest. We also observe variance in Gender Equality in senior management with the best performers scoring 2.4 times better than the worst. We find a significant negative correlation (coefficient of -0.7) between the signal strength and our measure of gender equality in senior management. This supports our hypothesis that the sentiment present in Employee Reviews can be indicative of gender equality in senior management.
Introduction
This study explores the interplay between gender equality and negative sentiment in employee reviews, focusing on female representation in senior management.
The Gender Equality Score is introduced to assess gender disparities, using ratios of males to females in management roles and overall company composition. Deltabase Employee Sentiment and ESG Analytics data products are used for benchmarking.
Methodology
Ten companies with revenue in excess of $5bln were selected at random from the Consumer Goods industry sector and analysed, comparing the Gender Equality Score and Negative Sentiment Signal Strength for each.
Senior Management Gender Equality Score is measure that we use that compares the ratio of males to females in senior management (non board) roles with the ratio of males to females in the entire company, allowing us to compare performance of individual companies across disparate geographical or industry sectors, identifying for example situations where gender representation is balanced in the workforce but predominantly male-dominated in management.
Negative Signal Strength measures the prevalence of negative gender equality sentiment over 56,000 reviews for this set of companies. We use Large Language Models (stsb-mpnet-base-v2, electra_large_discriminator_squad2_512, chat-gpt3.5) and our own proprietary data pipeline throughout the process to find interpret and measure the data used to compute Sentiment and Equality Scores.
Results
The findings confirm a negative correlation (Pearson Coefficient of -0.7) between reduced female representation in senior management and negative gender equality sentiment in employee reviews. The Gender Equality Score uncovers gender disparities masked by overall workforce parity.
Figure 1 illustrates the findings of this study, highlighting the relationship between negative gender equality employee sentiment and the ratio of gender equality in senior management. The companies that demonstrate higher levels of negative sentiment regarding gender equality also tend to exhibit poor performance in terms of gender equality representation in senior management. These companies can be observed in the top right quadrant of the chart. Conversely, companies with lower levels of negative employee sentiment demonstrate a more favourable performance in terms of gender equality in senior management. These may be seen in the bottom left quadrant of the chart:
Figure 1 Senior Management Gender Equality Score vs Negative Employee Sentiment
| Company | Female Senior Management % | Female All Employees % | Senior Management Gender Equality Score | Review Count | Sentiment Signal |
| Company 1 | 26% | 40% | 66% | 4,036 | 0.47% |
| Company 2 | 22% | 28% | 79% | 1,394 | 0.43% |
| Company 3 | 38% | 48% | 79% | 2,796 | 0.29% |
| Company 4 | 34% | 42% | 81% | 1,340 | 0.30% |
| Company 5 | 33% | 39% | 85% | 6,818 | 0.26% |
| Company 6 | 35% | 30% | 116% | 4,954 | 0.14% |
| Company 7 | 42% | 34% | 124% | 5,232 | 0.19% |
| Company 8 | 46% | 36% | 128% | 2,254 | 0.09% |
| Company 9 | 34% | 27% | 128% | 1,822 | 0.33% |
| Company 10 | 43% | 27% | 159% | 25,736 | 0.22% |
Conclusion
This study establishes a notable correlation between reduced female representation in senior management and negative sentiment in employee reviews regarding gender equality.
Further research may explore a larger cohort of companies and examine the reasons behind this correlation and investigate the experiences of female employees in management positions. The study highlights the potential for analysis of Open Roles and employment journeys to gain deeper insights into gender equality outcomes.
See our product pages on ESG Analysis and Employee Sentiment for more information on the products used in this study. Or, get in touch to discuss how we can help you.