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| Concept art generated by Blue Willow to illustrate an office discussion. The genders of the people sitting vs standing in the image were not specified in the prompt. |
LinkedIn's latest data for the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) has found that women are significantly under-represented in leadership roles across Australia, India, and Singapore.
Despite constituting 49% of Australia's workforce, only 35% of leadership positions are occupied by women, for instance, a statistic that LinkedIn says has been unchanged since 2020. Similar disparities persist in India (23%) and Singapore (38%).
In addition, the share of women being hired into leadership over the last five years remains low: 38% in 2020 to 41% in 2024 in Australia; 24% in 2020 to 23% in 2024 in India; and 35% in 2020 to 38% in 2024 in Singapore.
The company recently surveyed hiring managers in the Asia-Pacific region and said that things could be changing. The survey has highlighted that transformative policies such as internal mobility, career progression, and flexible work arrangements could become more common.
The survey found that female leaders are championing these transformative policies more than their male counterparts, though all leaders are moving in the same direction. In the year ahead, 54% of female leaders aim to emphasise career advancement and skill building, against 51% of male leaders. Moreover, 54% of female leaders prioritise internal mobility compared to 45% of male leaders, 50% advocate for flexible working policies (46% of male leaders said the same), and 38% believe that personalised flexible work arrangements are more attractive to employees compared to 31% of male leaders.
More than half of female leaders (51%) are committed to prioritising career progression for employees, compared to 49% of male leaders, and 49% emphasise the importance of flexible work arrangements, compared to 45% of male leaders. In China, 20% of female leaders are more likely to believe that fully remote work arrangements based on personal preferences are more attractive to employees, compared to 5% of male leaders.
“The lack of progress in female representation in leadership positions over the last five years in Australia, India, and Singapore is disappointing. While there has been some improvement in the share of women being hired into leadership roles, there is still much work to be done.
"However, there is reason for optimism, as female leaders are more likely to advocate for career advancement, internal mobility, and flexible work arrangements, which can benefit other women seeking to progress in their careers or balance professional and personal responsibilities. I believe these initiatives have the potential to shift the needle in terms of female representation in the workforce,” said Feon Ang, LinkedIn's APAC MD.
LinkedIn's research has further found that the top five skills identified by hiring managers in the Asia-Pacific region emphasise not only AI knowhow, but also soft skills - problem-solving abilities (35%), communications skills (27%), critical thinking (25%), AI skills (19%) as well as IT and web skills (17%).
Over the past eight years, LinkedIn said that both women and men have
shown an increase in the share of soft skills listed on their LinkedIn
profiles, but women have demonstrated a notably faster pace of growth.
This trend has led to a doubling of the gender
gap from 1.5 percentage points in 2016 to 3 percentage points in 2024 in favour of women when it comes to soft skills, and holds true across 70 countries.
LinkedIn suggested that shifting towards a model that prioritises skills over traditional experience could significantly increase the appearance of women in roles where they are traditionally under-represented. The company said that doing so could lead to a 24% increase in the talent pool of women compared to men globally.
