Time to Break Down Closed Doors

Tesla is under pressure from investors, as former employees strain against arbitration ties. 

Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has never been one to shy away from the spotlight.   In recent weeks, he dominated headlines again as shareholders in his US-based automotive and clean energy company Tesla gathered for its annual general meeting (AGM) on 13 June to vote on the CEO’s proposed historic US$56…

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Standards Review Puts Labour Issues Centre Stage

GRI takes a human-rights based approach that will form the basis for the wider revision of its Labor Topic Standards.

Inconsistent and insufficient reporting from companies on workforce pay and conditions is a long-term source of frustration for investors, but standards-setters’ and policymakers’ increasing focus on the issue could change the game. Last week, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) published exposure drafts for the first phase of its Topic Standard…

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Countries with the Biggest Gender Disparities in their Workforces

Published

15 mins ago

on

June 10, 2024 Graphics/Design:

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Countries with the Biggest Gender Disparities in Workforces

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

This graphic ranks the countries with the biggest gender disparities in their labor forces by contrasting the average male and female labor force participation rate and measuring the gap between them.

Data for this graphic is sourced from the World Bank, which aggregates 2023 International Labour Organization estimates.

ℹ️ A country’s labor force includes people aged 15+ who are working or actively looking for work in exchange for pay, profit, or shared production. Unpaid workers, family caretakers, students, and military personnel may be excluded from this count.
Ranked: Differences in Male and Female Labor Participation Rates

The top 10 countries with the highest discrepancies between male and female labor participation rates are Islamic nations:

RankCountryMale Labor Force
Participation Rate (%)Female Labor Force
Participation Rate (%)Gender Disparity
(In percentage points) 1🇦🇫 Afghanistan69564 2🇮🇶 Iraq721161 3🇵🇰 Pakistan812557 4🇴🇲 Oman883256 5🇮🇷 Iran711456 6🇾🇪 Yemen60555 7🇪🇬 Egypt711755 8🇩🇿 Algeria671750 9🇸🇾 Syria641450 10🇯🇴 Jordan631449 11🇲🇦 Morocco682049 12🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia803545 13🇮🇳 India773344 14🇧🇩 Bangladesh803743 15🇧🇭 Bahrain874443 16🇹🇳 Tunisia692742 17🇬🇹 Guatemala814140 18🇸🇩 Sudan682840 19🇱🇰 Sri Lanka723240 20🇰🇼 Kuwait864838 N/A🌍 World734924
Note: Figures rounded and based on International Labour Organization’s estimates as of 2023.

In countries such as Pakistan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, the male labor force participation rates are higher than the global average. Meanwhile the female participation rates are 50+ percentage points lower than the corresponding male rates, and 15-25 points below the global female average.

For the other countries in the top 10 by labor participation rate differential, the average male participation rate is also below the global average. This could indicate a lack of general economic opportunities with the nation.

Finally, India (#13), Guatemala (#17) and Sri Lanka (#19) are three countries in the top 20 with

Take Five: Modi Feels the Heat

A selection of the major stories impacting ESG investors, in five easy pieces. 

Climate wasn’t high on the ballot in India’s election, but Modi must soon face uncomfortable truths on coal.

Modi feels the heat – Conducted in record temperatures, the world’s biggest exercise in democracy dealt a blow to the ego of incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but it’s less clear how the outcome of India’s general election will impact its net zero transition. Stock prices were down this week on the assumption that reliance on coalition partners would slow the pace of the infrastructure investment plans of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The impact of the election on India’s climate policy might be less significant, for a number of reasons. First, other priorities regularly topped polls of voter concerns, notably inflation and unemployment, although this has evolved recently, partly due to increased instances of climate-induced physical impacts, from landslides to floods to severe crop losses. Second, both the BJP and its leading opponent, Congress, are strongly committed to India’s continued adoption of renewables, albeit via different means – with the challenger party promising in its manifesto a new green transition fund and more resources for India’s National Adaptation Fund. A third reason, which leads on from the first two, is that neither major party has been forced to properly address India’s biggest climate problem – vast and rising emissions from coal. Indeed, current policy is for domestic production to increase up to 2040 to reduce reliance on imports. Coal – and Modi’s close relationships with the controversial Adani Group – notwithstanding, the BJP’s record on solar and hydrogen investments, and fossil fuel subsidy reductions is impressive. But regardless of the make-up of the coalition, India’s next government will need to up the ante to have a hope of meeting even its existing climate commitments, such as installing 500GW of renewables, which will handle 50% of electricity demand, by 2030.

Down, not out – Support for climate-related resolutions at the AGMs of US firms has been closely watched this proxy season for further signs of a “stewardship depression” witnessed since 2021. But climate votes only tell part of the story, with a high number of social-themed filings also vying for investor backing. These include four shareholder proposals seeking more action and transparency on pay, working conditions and racial equity by Walmart, the world’s largest private employer. Prior to

Which Countries Have the Most and Least Women in the Workforce?

Published

28 mins ago

on

June 6, 2024 Graphics/Design:

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Countries With the Most and Least Women in the Workforce

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

This map shows the top and bottom 10 countries by the percentage of their women population (aged 15+) in the labor force. This is also called the female workforce participation rate.

Data for this graphic is sourced from the World Bank, which aggregates International Labour Organization estimates from 2023.

ℹ️ A country’s labor force includes people aged 15+ who are working or actively looking for work in exchange for pay, profit, or shared production. Unpaid workers, family caretakers, students, and military personnel (depending on the country) may be excluded from this count.
Ranked: Countries By Rate of Women in the Workforce

Madagascar, Burundi, and Mozambique have some of the highest women workforce participation rates in the world (near 80%).

Here’s a full ranking of countries by their female workforce participation rate.

RankCountryFemale Labor
Force Participation
Rate (2023) 1🇲🇬 Madagascar83% 2🇸🇧 Solomon Islands83% 3🇧🇮 Burundi79% 4🇲🇿 Mozambique78% 5🇹🇿 Tanzania77% 6🇪🇹 Ethiopia75% 7🇦🇴 Angola73% 8🇱🇷 Liberia72% 9🇰🇪 Kenya72% 10🇲🇩 Moldova72% 11🇪🇷 Eritrea71% 12🇸🇸 South Sudan70% 13🇮🇸 Iceland70% 14🇰🇵 North Korea70% 15🇰🇭 Cambodia70% 16🇻🇳 Viet Nam69% 17🇳🇿 New Zealand68% 18🇺🇬 Uganda68% 19🇦🇿 Azerbaijan67% 20🇨🇲 Cameroon67% 21🇨🇩 Congo67% 22🇵🇪 Peru66% 23🇧🇸 Bahamas65% 24🇬🇭 Ghana65% 25🇧🇹 Bhutan65% 26🇶🇦 Qatar64% 27🇲🇼 Malawi64% 28🇨🇫 Central African Republic63% 29🇸🇪 Sweden63% 30🇰🇿 Kazakhstan63% 31🇲🇴 Macao63% 32🇨🇩 DRC63% 33🇱🇨 St. Lucia63% 34🇳🇪 Niger62% 35🇳🇴 Norway62% 36🇳🇱 Netherlands62% 37🇸🇬 Singapore62% 38🇦🇺 Australia62% 39🇯🇲 Jamaica61% 40🇨🇭 Switzerland61% 41🇨🇦 Canada61% 42🇪🇪 Estonia61% 43🇹🇱 Timor-Leste61% 44🇭🇹 Haiti61% 45🇮🇱 Israel61%

Pension Funds Slow on DEI

Asset owners are urged to better reflect their priorities when engaging with third-party providers and underlying investments. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) themes have been increasingly featured in pension funds’ investment policies and assessment criteria for third-party providers, but research has highlighted their surprising absence in ongoing engagement efforts.  

Published by pension fund advisor Pensions for Purpose, the report drew on interviews with 21 organisations – including pension funds, trustees, asset managers and investment consultants – across the UK, Europe and the US, outlining how they consider DEI across their organisation and underlying investments, as well as their approach when interacting with third-party providers. 

All surveyed asset owners agreed that DEI correlates directly with business performance and have integrated such themes into their business models to varying degrees. Forty-two percent of asset owners have also implemented DEI voting and engagement polices, expecting diverse board representation. 

However, the level of development of pension funds’ DEI action plans and strategies still “varies significantly”, Pensions for Purpose said. For example, almost a third have not set specific targets, and only two were intentionally considering DEI topics in their underlying investments. There also remains a “marked lack” of engagement on DEI in pension funds’ underlying portfolio companies, the report noted. 

“There are pension funds doing great things on DEI, and they think about it holistically,” Karen Shackleton, Chair and Founder of Pensions for Purpose, told ESG Investor. “But those pension funds remain in the minority.” 

Ninety-two percent of surveyed pension funds said they had incorporated DEI factors into asset manager selection and oversight processes, with one asset owner commended for setting explicit representation targets for prospective asset managers and mandating a minimum participation of 50% of women or individuals from underrepresented backgrounds on the investment committees of their outsourced CIO.  

“However, most of these asset owners aren’t then challenging their managers [or investment consultants] to improve their DEI performance,” said Shackleton. “It’s fairly straightforward for an asset owner to bring DEI into their selection process, but beyond this DEI appears to be a consideration, not a deal breaker.” 

Until asset owners start regularly encouraging third-party providers to improve their DEI performance beyond the selection process, they won’t improve, Shackleton argued.  

Diversify for a Just Transition

Anita Dorett, Director of the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, warns of the pitfalls of relying on social audits to address state-sponsored forced labour risks.

Given multinationals’ complex global supply chains and trading relationships, the vast majority of today’s goods are sourced and produced far from where they are sold and consumed. For this reason, to meet their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), companies must ‘know and show’ where human rights risks may be present at every link in their global supply chains.

To address supply chain risks, companies are expected to disclose all their suppliers and business relationships throughout the entire supply chain, develop stringent supplier codes of conduct, and implement robust monitoring systems to ensure their codes are being enforced on the ground. Third-party social and labour audits and related supplier certifications have long been the go-to method for supply chain monitoring, noting that there are significant shortcomings with these programmes. Where these programmes fail, however, is in geographies where state-imposed forced labour is prevalent. In these cases, even the best-intentioned of such risk-assessment schemes are rendered wholly unverifiable and, therefore, meaningless.

Prohibited practices

Distinct from forced labour imposed by private actors like companies or individuals, state-imposed forced labour is compulsory labour enforced by state or governmental authorities. According to Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index, in 2021, 3.9 million people were forced to work by state authorities.

The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) convention No 105 expressly prohibits state-imposed forced labour. State-imposed forced labour is often implemented as a means of political coercion or ‘re-education’ or as a punishment for expressing dissenting political views; as a method of mobilising labor for economic development; as a means of labour discipline; or as a means of racial, social, ethnic, or religious discrimination. State-imposed forced labour can be found in 17 countries including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, North Korea, and China.

Nowhere is this pernicious form of human rights abuse better illustrated than the Chinese government’s long-term repression and enslavement of people in the Xinjiang Province (Uyghur region). The pervasive use of state-imposed forced labour programmes, enforced through an extensive surveillance system in the Uyghur region, vividly illustrates the impossibility of conducting credible supply chain human rights due diligence where the state controls the outcome.

According to auditors, they are only given limited access to worksites, can only inspect a curated ‘snapshot’ of factory conditions,