Recognising the credentials of female employees was not only a matter of social justice but also made good business and investment sense, a recent study from Thomson Reuters Research has found.
Its report, 'Women in the Workplace', studied more than 2,600 large and mid-cap publicly traded corporations globally, and found that companies with a higher proportion of female managers tended to perform better in times of market turmoil.
Last year, companies listed on the Stoxx Europe 600 with more than 30 female managers or board members outperformed their peers during the second half when the market became more volatile.
Similar results in the benchmark indices could be detected.
Healthcare, cyclical consumer goods and services, and financial industries were most willing to offer women managerial positions.
For example, in 2005, women made up 28 per cent of managers in the financial services sector, but the rate rose to 33 per cent in 2010.