Hong Kong ranks third in number of women in the workplace, says study

Hong Kong ranks third out of six Asian locations in a gender diversity survey that looked at women in the workplace.

Community Business, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to enhancing corporate social responsibility, polled 32 multi-national companies in Hong Kong, the mainland, India, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore from October last year to March this year.

The study found that while Malaysia topped the chart with 58.1 per cent of the workforce being women, the proportion of women in the workforce in Hong Kong was up by more than 5.5 percentage points from three years ago.

The survey showed that the mainland ranked second with 56.7 per cent; third was Hong Kong with 50.9 per cent; fourth was Singapore with 48.2 per cent; fifth was Japan with 42.6 per cent; and India was last at 26.6 per cent.

"There have been a lot of studies linking diversity with an increase in creativity, innovation, and better performing teams," said Fern Ngai, the organisation's chief executive.

" The more diverse your group is, [the more] you're going to have diversity of perspective. And when you have that diversity, you create better products.