Gender divide: women make up 10% of the world’s multi-millionaires
A study by Spear’s and WealthInsight reveals how men far outnumber women at the multi-millionaire level. Research looked at the gender divide among multi-millionaires in different countries
Only 10 per cent of the world's multimillionaires are women, according to a survey by Spear's and wealth consultancy company WealthInsight. Portugal leads all surveyed countries in addressing the gender divide with women making up 23.8 per cent of its multimillionaire populations. Japan has the lowest proportion with just 3.7 per cent.
Countries making up the top ten include Peru (18.3 per cent), Turkey (17.4 per cent), Israel (17 per cent), Spain (13.8 per cent) and Italy (12.5 per cent). Emerging Asian nations such as the Philippines (21 per cent), Hong Kong (18 per cent) and Thailand (15 per cent) also feature.
Spear's editor Josh Spero said: 'The top ten most equal countries for multimillionaires are a diverse bunch and almost certainly not the ones you would have predicted. It certainly seems that Asia is leading the way in gender equality, perhaps reflecting emerging markets whose developing, increasing wealthy economies are not bound by old forms of gender discrimination in business.'
Women make up 11.4 per cent of UK multimillionaires, which places it 10th in Europe and 15th in the world. Other developed countries such as Germany (9.6 per cent, the US (9.4 per cent) and France (8.5 per cent) all have a smaller percentage of female multimillionaires than the UK. They also fall below the global average of 10 per cent.
WealthInsight analyst Oliver Williams said: 'There seems to be no correlation between emerging and developed countries in the top ten female multimillionaire countries.
'However, if you consider that Hong Kong and Singapore are home to many of emerging Asia's multimillionaires, it appears that most of the top 10 countries are in fact emerging markets. This is a startling realisation when you think that it is Western countries leading the way in promoting gender equality.'
Saudi Arabia joins Japan at the bottom of the ranking with women making up 3.8 per cent of multimillionaires in the Middle Eastern country. Mexico (5.3 per cent), Russia (5.7 per cent) and the Netherlands (5.9 per cent) made up the rest of the worst five countries for proportion of female multimillionaires.
But Spero had a word of warning for all countries. He said: 'It is worth remembering, of course, that women make up over half the global population, so we can't really say any country is gender-equal until its wealth is divided much more along those lines. What is shocking is that no country is anywhere near that yet.'
IN FULL - Gender divide ranking:
Country - Percentage of female multimillionaires
Portugal - 23.8%
Philippines - 21%
Peru - 18.3%
Hong Kong - 18.0%
Turkey - 17.4%
Israel - 17%
Singapore - 16.3%
Thailand - 15%
Spain - 13.8%
Italy - 12.5%
Sweden - 12.2%
Norway - 12.1%
Chile - 11.6%
Switzerland - 11.6%
United Kingdom - 11.4%
Ireland - 11%
Nigeria - 11%
India - 10.9%
Finland - 10.8%
South Korea - 10.7%
Brazil - 10.6%
Denmark - 9.7%
Germany - 9.6%
Greece - 9.5%
United States of America - 9.4%
Canada - 9.2%
China - 9.1%
Australia - 8.8%
United Arab Emirates - 8.6%
France - 8.5%
Austria - 8.5%
Indonesia - 8.3%
Colombia - 7.1%
Poland - 7.0%
Malaysia - 6.4%
New Zealand - 6.3%
Belgium - 6.0%
Netherlands - 5.9%
Russia - 5.7%
Mexico - 5.3%
Saudi Arabia - 3.8%
Japan - 3.7%
Methodology:
This research is based on WealthInsight's global database of millionaires or high net worth individuals. By breaking the data down by country and then by gender, WealthInsight has created this unique ranking of the proportional percentages of multimillionaires around the world.
