How to invest in gender equity

The Gender Equity Australian Shares option is a new, values-led investment option that focuses on local companies leading in gender equality.  

If you want your super to support the advancement of women and gender-diverse people in leadership, this is one of the strongest ways to do it. It’s investing for greater equality. And it’s only available through Verve Super. 

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) collects data from every employer in Australia with 100 or more employees. The goal of WGEA’s work is to move the needle on gender equality in workplaces and on the gender pay gap, in part by shining a light on how workplaces are really performing on equality issues.  

According to WGEA’s data, we’ve still got a long way to go. The gender pay gap in the Australian private sector is 21.8% and only 21.9% of CEOs are women.  

Crucially, WGEA data is publicly available. On the WGEA website you can even see the gender pay gap of every company that has reported and search by company name.  

WGEA data isn’t perfect. We’ve written before about the ways it fails to capture people with intersecting identities and more could be done to address this.  

Thanks to WGEA’s data collection, Verve Super’s investment manager is able to look at how ASX listed companies perform on gender equality metrics. Not every ASX listed company is captured in the data, but all of those with more than 100 employees are.  

The Gender Equity Australian Shares option biases investment towards companies that are leading the way on gender equity, demonstrated by currently holding a WGEA Employer of Choice for Gender Equality citation.  

Citation holders show achievements on workplace gender equality, meaning they’re making progress according to WGEA’s gender equality indicators. 

Those indicators include things like the gender composition of the workforce, the gender pay gap, flexible working options to support caring duties and policies to stamp out sex discrimination.  

By biasing investment towards companies that are doing well on gender equality issues, you end up with a portfolio that’s investing more in gender equity leaders. 

The Gender Equity Australian Shares option also uses all the same ethical and sustainable screens that are applied to Verve Super’s other available options. So there’s no investing in listed companies with all male boards, fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers or tobacco companies.   

Something important to note is that this investment option is 100% invested in Australian shares, meaning it’s not a diversified portfolio with investments in things like cash and bonds alongside shares like Verve Super’s other options.  

Being all in on Australian shares means you’re going to see market movement without diversification to sort of buffer the impacts of those ups and downs. Think about how you see those charts on the news showing how much the ASX gained or lost each day – markets move a lot! You can split your super across two or more investment options so that you’re still benefiting from some diversification, if you don’t want to be fully exposed to the ASX’s movements.  

Verve Super’s co-founder Christina Hobbs explains this investment option gets to the heart of why Verve Super is here.  

“Companies that take diversity seriously tend to perform better. A study from McKinsey found that companies with diverse executive teams had a 39% greater likelihood of outperforming their peers financially. That makes sense because taking diversity seriously helps you attract and keep the best talent, and it also means you benefit from diversity of experiences which allows teams to problem solve from more angles.  

“This investment option harnesses the edge that diversity gives organisations. It also allows Verve Super members to invest in line with their values, and with the kind of world they want to see. These are Australian companies, places our members might work, and by biasing investment towards those doing the best on gender equity and screening out listed companies with all male boards we’re allowing them to use their super to influence positive change.”  

Check out all six investment options available in Verve Super here.