Female labour participation: 2nd position for Switzerland

In the second annual edition of PwC´s Women in Work Index, the Nordic countries remain in the lead. Switzerland ranks in 7th position. However, 77% of the women in Switzerland participate in the labour force - only Sweden has a higher participation (78%). Female unemployment in Switzerland remains stable at 5%. Altogether, Switzerland performs above the OECD average, but its performance is negatively impacted due to the low proportion of women in full-time employment (54%). Since 2011, the percentage of women in boardroom positions in Switzerland has risen by 1% to 10%.

Zurich, 3 March 2014 - The Nordic countries continue to lead the Index, with Norway still in pole position, followed by Denmark and Sweden. These three countries have consistently occupied the top three positions in the Index ever since 2000. The Netherlands and Ireland have made the biggest progress on the Index since last year, with both countries moving up five positions - due in large part to narrower gender wage gaps. In the latest analysis, Switzerland ranks in 7th position out of 27 OECD countries, based on a measure that combines five key indicators of female economic empowerment: the equality of earnings with men; the proportion of women in work, both in absolute terms and relative to men; the female unemployment rate; and the proportion of women in full-time employment.

High part-time employment
Participation in the labour force has increased across the OECD since 2000, with Spain making notable improvements between 2000 (53%) and 2012 (69%). On average, the full-time employment rate across the OECD has remained relatively stable, with some cross-country variations in performance. Charles Donkor, Partner Human Capital Consulting, PwC Switzerland, commented: "Switzerland performs above the OECD average and is in 2^nd position with a female participation in the labour force of 77% and female unemployment levels at 5%. But its performance is negatively impacted due to the low proportion of women in full-time employment (54%)."

The power of equal wages
Norway leads the way due to its low levels of female unemployment and small gender pay gap. The Netherlands and Ireland have made the greatest improvements since last year, largely due to a significant narrowing of their gender wage gaps. The economic crisis continues to take its toll on the absolute performance in the southern European countries. Portugal, Spain and Greece all saw their gender wage gaps widen and female unemployment rates increase in 2012, reflecting more general economic weakness in these countries. Switzerland has made progress in closing the gender wage gap since 2000, reducing it from 22% to 18% in 2012. However, this is still higher than the OECD average of 16%. Ireland has made the most dramatic improvement over this period, with their wage gap narrowing to only 4% (2000: 20%).

Impact of women´s quota
The largest gains regarding female boardroom memberships have been made in countries where legal requirements for female representation have been introduced, such as in France, Netherlands, Italy and Belgium. Boardroom representation has improved slightly across the OECD, including Switzerland (10%). Joanne Burgener, partner and Diversity leader, PwC Switzerland, said: "It has been proven that mixed-gender teams deliver greater innovation, profit and productivity. Women play an important role in enhancing the growth and the success of the Swiss economy. To rise the female boardroom percentage in Switzerland, appropriate frameworks and a cultural change in every company are necessary."

PwC Women in Work Index:

	2000		2007		2011		2012
	Index	Rank	Index	Rank	Index	Rank	Index	Rank
Norway	76.3	1	79.2	1	81.4	1	82.9	1
Denmark	74.0	3	78.4	2	75.7	2	76.3	2
Sweden	74.5	2	73.7	3	74.3	3	73.8	3
New Zealand	63.0	6	70.4	4	69.8	4	70.4	4
Finland	63.3	5	68.2	5	68.5	5	69.8	5
Canada	55.7	8	64.8	6	65.8	6	66.2	6
Switzerland	53.6	9	60.4	12	63.3	7	64.4	7
Germany	47.4	18	55.6	15	62.3	9	63.0	8
Australia	50.9	13	60.5	11	62.5	8	62.9	9
Belgium	46.7	19	56.0	14	61.5	11	62.6	10
Austria	48.1	17	54.7	19	60.3	13	61.6	11
Netherlands	48.5	15	55.4	16	57.6	17	60.8	12
France	51.7	12	60.6	10	61.0	12	60.4	13
Portugal	65.0	4	61.6	8	62.0	10	58.8	14
Poland	48.1	16	57.3	13	59.1	15	58.6	15
United States	59.5	7	61.0	9	58.5	16	58.3	16
Ireland	40.1	22	51.0	22	52.4	22	58.0	17
United Kingdom	49.1	14	55.3	17	56.4	19	57.7	18
Israel	45.9	20	51.4	21	56.6	18	57.7	19
Czech Republic	51.9	11	54.8	18	55.2	20	56.7	20
Hungary	53.1	10	62.5	7	59.5	14	56.6	21
Slovak Republic	44.8	21	49.6	23	50.3	23	49.3	22
Spain	26,3	26	52.5	20	53.1	21	47.8	23
Japan	27,9	25	35.5	26	39.5	25	42.1	24
Italy	31,8	23	43.9	24	41.4	24	41.5	25
Greece	28,9	24	41.2	25	37.4	26	33.9	26
Korea	23,9	27	30.2	27	28,1	27	30,5	27
OECD average	50.0		57.3		58.3		58.6

 Notes

1.    PwC´s Women in Work Index (WWI) is a weighted average of five key measures that reflect female economic empowerment using data from the OECD and national statistical offices:

·         The gender wage gap (25% weight)

·         Female labour force participation rate (25% weight)

·         The gap between female and male labour force participation rates (20% weight)

·         The female unemployment rate (20% weight)

·         The proportion of female employees who are in full-time employment (10% weight).

These indicators are standardised, weighted and aggregated to generate index scores for 27 OECD countries. The index scores are on a scale from 0 to 100, with the average value in the base year of 2000 set to 50. The average index value for 2012 can, however, be higher or lower than this 2000 baseline so the index measures both absolute and relative progress.

2.    The      Women in Work Index has been updated retrospectively following the OECD´s recent revisions of its gender wage gap estimates to improve their comparability and consistency. Due to these revisions, the UK´s rank in 2011 has been revised to 19^th, rather than 18^th as reported last year.

3.    Opportunity Now and PwC have surveyed 25,000 women to better understand women´s experiences in the workplace and the barriers to career progression, in the hope of educating businesses and levelling the playing field. The results of this extensive study will be released in early April.

4.    The table above provides more detail on PwC Women in Work Index rankings and      scores for 27 OECD countries in the four years for which it has been calculated: 2000, 2007, 2011 and 2012. Countries are ordered in line with the latest index 2012 rankings. A full report is available that provides further detail of the methodology and results, including trends in individual indicators.