By Leyla Yildirim, Chief Strategy Officer, PwC Channel Islands
New PwC research reveals that matching the female employment rates in Sweden could boost Channel Islands GDP by a massive 6% (equivalent to £239 million in Jersey and £168 million in Guernsey). How can our Islands realise the potential?
Women are a critical but still under-utilised source of talent and economic dynamism on the Channel Islands.
The benefits range from bringing in fresh ideas and experiences to helping to bridge skills gaps when a high level of open vacancies is holding back our economic performance. And it isn’t just technical skills that are in demand, but also the creativity and emotional intelligence needed to innovate and connect with customers. Indeed, as automation and artificial intelligence become more prevalent, the skills that can’t be replicated by machines will become the biggest differentiators. Arguably, many of these capabilities are associated much more with women than men.
Sizing the prize
To find out just how much the economy could benefit from improving opportunities for women, we asked PwC economists to rate Jersey and Guernsey against other leading economies in PwC’s Women in Work Index. The Index measures female participation in OECD economies and how pay compares with men. Sweden is used as the main benchmark as it consistently has one of the highest Index ratings amongst major economies.
The size of the prize on offer is set out in a new PwC report, Boosting diversity, prosperity and growth: Channel Islands Women in Work Index 2019. This not only includes a combined boost in GDP for Jersey and Guernsey of more than £400 million, but also an increase of over £300 million in women’s earnings by closing the gender pay gap.
Luxembourg pulls ahead
Yet a lot of barriers need to be overcome before we can capitalise. Jersey (20th) and Guernsey (14th) trail the UK as a whole (13th) in the Index rankings and are a long way behind Luxembourg (6th), a major competitor for financial services business and one of the fastest rising economies in the Index. At 21%, the gender pay gap is especially wide within the Channel Islands (16.5% in the UK as a whole), reflecting the lack of representation of women within the most senior and highest paid posts. In Luxembourg it’s only 4%, having fallen significantly in recent years.
Barriers to change
Why are many women finding it hard to break through the glass ceiling? Some of the barriers are common to all economies including unconscious bias and lack of role models. Others are specific to the Channel Islands, including high childcare costs and limited parental leave. Women joining partners taking up positions in financial services on the Islands can also find it difficult to secure work unless they also have experience in the industry.
Gender equality is now on the government and business agenda in the Channel Islands. Yet the Index rating and gender pay gap suggest that gender equality is still seen as a nice-to-have rather than a top line competitive priority like winning new business or enhancing customer satisfaction.
Accelerating progress
Our Boosting diversity, prosperity and growth: Channel Islands Women in Work Index 2019 outlines how governments, educators, businesses and women themselves can make gender equality a reality. This stretches from tackling the stereotypes in schools that prevent many women taking up careers in tech to challenging outdated attitudes such as people in senior roles not being able to work flexibly. Other areas of focus include the opportunities to apply skills learned in one sector to another, as industry boundaries blur – tech proficiency, customer engagement or project/change management, for example.
This still leaves the question of how we turn opportunities for women from a nice-to-have into an imperative. We at PwC believe that gender pay gap reporting and creating targets for female representation will bring the issues out into the open and inject urgency into tackling them. If gender equality is a strategic priority, we also believe that it should get full board support, with proper accountability, targets, tracking and incentives to meet objectives and deliver success.
Our economy is at risk of deterring talent and investment if we don’t make progress. But if we work together to get this right, we can not only realise the GDP gains, but also position Channel Islands PLC as a skilled, dynamic and forward-looking magnet for talent and investment.
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