International Women’s Day shines the spotlight on the experiences of women; we look at how applying an intersectional lens to data on gender gives a more nuanced picture.
Collecting a wide suite of demographics is central to understanding the experiences and perceptions of different groups. Traditional data analytics may, however, overlook the connections between different demographic characteristics and thereby fail to capture important disparities between employees’ individual experiences.
Findings from our Employee Survey 2021 shows that women in financial services tend on average to answer most questions more positively than do men. Exceptions to this include some questions relating to ethical behaviour and speaking up. On the latter, a smaller proportion of women (78% in 2021) than men (81%) feel comfortable challenging a decision made by their manager; a small difference, but one that stands out because it reverses the general pattern.
When ethnicity is factored in, however, the experiences of White British women are comparable to that of men overall, while women from minority ethnic groups are, on average, markedly less likely to feel comfortable challenging a decision.
The experiences of minority populations can easily be masked in large pools of survey respondents. Taking an intersectional approach that integrates and examines all the social identities held by individual employees, generates better quality information to help promote inclusion in the workplace.
Respondents who feel comfortable challenging a decision by their manager