Compared to other nations, the U.S. falls behind when it comes to gender equity. In a gender equity ranking of 100 publicly traded companies, only 14 American companies were listed, and only one healthcare company made the list, according to a March report.
The Equileap report ranks almost 4,000 publicly traded companies using a gender index, including key metrics like gender pay gaps, gender balance of the workforce across various levels and paid leave policies. Together, the analyzed companies employ more than 102 million workers worldwide.
The countries with the best companies for gender equity were Sweden, France and the U.K. The U.S., Japan and Hong Kong were among the countries with the weakest gender protection. Among U.S. companies, only 8 percent publicly reported gender pay gap metrics and only 10 percent of U.S. companies analyzed have reached gender balance in the boardroom.
Although American companies represented 1,455 of the public organizations analyzed, only 14 of those companies made it onto the top 100 list.
Eli Lilly was the only U.S. healthcare company on the list, sitting at number 97. Other healthcare companies that made it on the list were AstraZeneca (No. 10), Sanofi (No. 25) and GlaxoSmithKline (No. 51).