With International Women’s Day approaching on Sunday, March 8, we sought to understand which gender-related issues are top of mind. To do so, we surveyed 1,000 American adults to ask: which of the following topics do you care most about this International Women’s Day?
Nearly one in 5 (19%) Americans said eliminating the gender pay gap was most important. Slightly less than one in 10 (9%) said they care most about enacting a federal parental leave policy, and nearly two in three (62%) do not know what they care the most about this International Women’s Day.
As we learned in a previous survey aimed at enterprise employees, 73% of American enterprise workers say they are aware of gender pay gaps.
In a presidential election year, Americans care more about electing the first female president (8%) than diversifying the C-suite/board room (2%). Electing a female president ranks only slightly higher in importance among women (8%) than men (7%).
Millennials (8%) care least about electing the first female president, compared to Gen Zs (10%) and Baby Boomers (9%).
Baby Boomers, Women Care More About Eliminating the Gender Pay Gap
Women (24%) were almost twice as likely to rank eliminating the gender pay gap as most important than men (13%). Among generations, Baby Boomers (27%) care more about eliminating the gender pay gap than Millennials (18%) and Gen Zs (15%).
One in 10 women (10%) care most about enacting a federal parental leave policy, which is slightly more than men (8%). Nearly one in eight (12%) of Gen Zs care most about enacting a federal parental leave policy, compared to Millennials (11%) and Baby Boomers (5%)
An extremely low number of women and men (2%) care about diversifying the C-suite/board room. Millennials (4%) care most about diversifying the C-suite/board room, compared to Gen Zs (less than 1%) and Baby Boomers (2%).
These results compliment our more extensive 2019 gender pay gap survey of 1,600 enterprise workers in the U.S. and the U.K. Download our full survey report to learn what employees think about employers’ efforts to improve the gender pay gap, how much pay gap transparency and equality efforts really affect employee loyalty and retention and which government and employer actions are valued most by employees.
