Private Debt Intelligence – 11/11/2019

Women in Private Debt

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The number of women that are working in alternatives has increased compared with two years ago. At present, women represent 19.7% of employees in the alternatives industry, where as in 2017, there proportion was 18.8%. However, the rise was unequally shared across the asset classes. Overall, private equity, venture capital and hedge funds now have a larger proportion of female employees, but private debt, real estate, infrastructure and natural resources recorded a decrease in female representation. In 2017, women in private debt represented 19.1% and they now represent 18.9%.

In general, the roles that women occupy are mostly junior, making up a quarter to a third of total number of employees. The proportion of female employees decline at mid-level and senior level positions. Particularly, in private debt the representation of women in junior and mid-level are 28.2% and 23.1% respectively. Only 10.3% of women have a senior position in private debt, the second asset class with the lowest rate of women employees at senior level of all alternatives.

The representation of women varies by location. This year different regions claimed the top spot when comparing female representation by geography and asset class. After natural resources, private debt is the asset class with more percentage of women employed in Europe (22%). Following Europe, the rest of the World employs 19.8% of women in private debt. Asia counts with 18.6% of female employees in private debt and, very close, North America is the region with the lowest rate of women working in private debt (18.3%).

The global alternatives industry now employs more women, but there are large gaps at senior level and a significant imbalance remains. As our findings highlight, there is still work to be done to improve the representation of women at all levels.

Contact: Maria Zapata
maria.zapata@preqin.com