Stalled Progress for Gender Diversity in Canadian Real Estate, Diversified Industries, and Financial Institutions

In support of International Women's Day, we are publishing a series of articles to examine the progress made toward balanced gender diversity by Canadian companies, specifically spanning real estate, diversified industries, and financial institutions.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS
-- Women remain extremely underrepresented in CEO roles across industries in Canada. The percentage of women holding CFO roles is reasonably larger than that of CEO roles, although the actual numbers remain small.
-- At the board level, the gender gap appears to be narrowing, with an average 37% of women on boards in 2023.
-- We do not expect significant improvement toward gender diversity in Canada in the near term.

"Currently, Canadian companies with existing DEI policies and strategies have been under public scrutiny by multiple stakeholders, including regulators and investors," said Jiani Wu, Vice President, North American Financial Institution Ratings. "We continue to call for more comprehensive, consistent, and standardized disclosure across industries, allowing trend tracking and comparison by stakeholders."