According to Spinnaker’s Maritime HR Association data, the proportion of male and female employees within the global shore-based workforce remained largely stable in 2020 – 56% male, 41% female, and 3% unknown.
In countries with a large membership presence (500+ employees) only the UK and the Philippines are found to employ more women than men overall, at 53% and 67% of the workforce respectively – the result of a high number of customer service and crewing roles in these locations.
Filipino and Singaporean employees are most likely to be female. Filipino women are typically found working in the Philippines, in crewing and finance roles. The types of roles occupied by Singaporean females are much more varied, but there is still a strong finance focus and they too are predominantly found working in their home country of Singapore.
Further key data from the survey shows 95% of all admin roles are occupied by women, compared to just 5% of maritime executive leadership team roles. The job areas where women are less well represented are those that drive higher market salaries too; for example technical and marine, chartering and freight trading and shipbroking.
It is a combination of all the above factors that drives the gender pay gap. High level analysis for key locations revealed Denmark as having the lowest gender pay gap – at 30%.
The impact of Covid is likely to worsen the gender diversity landscape
“Unfortunately, the impact of Covid is likely to worsen the gender diversity landscape – with women across all industries expected to be more likely to face redundancy or experience changes to roles or hours,” recruitment firm Spinnaker stated in a release, going on to advise that diversity initiatives need to become the norm and embedded within company culture.
