More than 1 in 5 people in the alternative investment industry are women, representing a slow but steady increase in gender parity, research from Preqin shows.
The data and analytics company said in a news release Monday about the research that 20.3% of people employed in the alternative assets industry at the end of 2020 were women, an increase from 19.7% at the end of 2019.
Women do account for only 12.2% of senior roles, however, and 6.6% are have board roles, the news release said. Preqin's previous report said slightly less than 12% of senior roles belonged to women and 6.4% had board roles.
Venture capital had the highest representation at 21.8% (up from 13.5% the year before when it was also the highest), and real estate once again had the lowest, at 18% (up from 8.5% the previous year).
Regionally, European natural resources firms had the highest representation of female employees at 23.3%, and Asian real estate firms had the lowest at 16.6%.
"Achieving gender equality in alternative assets is slow, but progress is being made in most parts of the industry," said Shifra Ansonoff, global head of research and data operations at Preqin, in the news release. "Our data on institutional clients shows that there are proportionately more women working at investors than at alternative asset firms trying to sell to them. We also see that female representation among senior roles remains low. However, women's presence in the alternative assets industry is slowly growing, registering gains that will hopefully hold over the longer term."
The full report is available on Preqin's website. A Preqin account, which is free to create, is required to sign in.
