Diversity & Inclusion: Unlocking Global Potential Global Diversity Rankings by Country, Sector and Occupation

This report provides a statistical look at worldwide workforce diversity data, a unique and first-of-its-kind ranking of employee diversity across 50 global economies, 14 industrial sectors and nine occupational categories. As a comprehensive atlas of corporate diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts, the goal of this report is to learn from the varied and unique situations faced by countries and corporations around the globe: Which approaches work best? How can companies continue to increase diversity and effectively translate this into business opportunities and higher productivity? This study also seeks to provide a benchmark, revealing how much progress has been made and where renewed effort is necessary.

In addition, this report spotlights D&I programs at five companies—Hewlett-Packard, Ericsson, Procter & Gamble, Royal Dutch Shell and Deloitte—to showcase the way global corporations are engaging this issue.

For the study, Forbes Insights commissioned Oxford Economics to build a unique global ranking model based on a weighted composite index to compare and benchmark employee diversity across countries, industries and occupations. The index is comprehensive and takes into account many different types of diversity including gender, age, ethnicity, disability, country of birth, skills and education, number of hours worked, language, and sectoral and geographical distribution.

Some key findings are:

• The country index shows that the nations with the most diverse labor forces are Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Australia,
  switzerland, the netherlands and canada
• Toward the lower end of the rankings are Italy, Japan and France
•  the United States scores reasonably well—it comes in ninth.
• The sector index ranks healthcare, hotels and catering, and education as the most diverse occupations.
• The c-level and senior management positions are woefully bereft of diversity. 
• There are stark differences in employee diversity across different industries and occupations. 
•  Taken together, the data reveals the power of long-established cultural norms in shaping individual career choices, and that, in turn, affects companies’ global diversity efforts

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