Morningstar, has published a research report finding that across 56 countries, one in five funds has a female portfolio manager, and in the study’s eight-year timeframe, that ratio has not improved. The company’s second research report about fund managers and gender considered more than 26,000 fund managers, comparing the man-to-woman ratio of fund managers to other professions that require similar education, including doctors and lawyers, by country. The report also identifies areas of the industry where women have been making relative gains.
“Women are underrepresented in mutual funds’ leadership ranks globally, with larger markets farther behind smaller markets,” Laura Pavlenko Lutton, Morningstar’s director of manager research in North America, said. “We did find areas where women are finding more opportunity, specifically among passive funds, funds of funds, and team-managed funds. Larger equity firms are also more likely to promote women to fund-management roles than smaller firms.”
Key highlights of the research report include:
- Countries with large financial centers have lower proportions of women fund managers than many smaller markets based on data from Morningstar’s global database. In France, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, and Spain, at least 20 percent of fund managers are women. Singapore is the global leader among 56 countries with women representing 30 percent of total fund managers and 29 percent of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholders. Large financial centers, such as Brazil, India, Germany, and the United States, are behind the global average of 12.9 percent women fund managers. In India, only 7 percent of fund managers are women.
- In some asset classes, women fund managers are more credentialed than men. A woman fund manager is approximately 7 percent and 4 percent more likely than a male peer to have her CFA designation among equity and fixed-income funds, respectively.
- Women have better odds of running funds in areas of industry growth such as passive, funds of funds, and team-managed funds; women are 19 percent more likely to manage on a team than men. In addition, it appears difficult for women to achieve management roles in more-established parts of the fund industry, including actively managed funds and solo-managed funds. In fact, women are 36 percent less likely to manage an active equity fund than men.
- The industry’s largest equity firms are more likely to name women as fund managers than smaller firms. Among funds at one of the top 10 largest firms by global equity assets under management, there are 83 percent higher odds that a woman would be named a fund manager.
The research report is available here.
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