Is the proportion of women in HR in decline?

At this point, the UK HR profession was almost four-fifths female: the proportion of female HR practitioners hit a record-high of 79.3% in 2007. This was some 16.5 percentage points higher than the proportion of women in HR recorded in 1997, which stood at 63.8%.

A general downward trend is seen over subsequent years. After 2007, the proportion of female HR professionals fell, rose and then fell again (down to 74.8% in 2008, before rebounding to 77.2% in 2009 and then sliding back to 75.8% again in 2010), but has remained consistently below the 2007 peak.

Although it is difficult to draw overall conclusions as to the gender profile of the UK HR profession solely on the basis of these data, it is interesting to consider that the high watermark of what UK HR blogger Rick has termed the "feminisation of HR" appears to have come immediately before the onset of the recent recession.

Mark Crail, XpertHR's Head of Benchmarking and Data Services comments:

I think most people are aware of the extent to which HR is seen as an overwhelmingly female profession, and the figures from XpertHR Salary Surveys bear that out. Over the past few years, though, it does appear that the tide may have turned. These are early days and I wouldn't want to read too much into it, but it does raise questions about whether more men are now entering HR - or whether women have disproportionately lost out in the recession."

The HR profession remains more 'equal' than others in 2011

But while the proportion of women in HR could be starting slowly to decline, the HR profession might still be argued to be more 'equal' than others, at least when it comes to the representation of women.

Women are more widely represented in HR than in other managerial specialisms (such as finance or sales). This is according to a comparison of XpertHR Salary Surveys findings on HR with data on all UK managerial functions, as reported in the XpertHR Salary Surveys National Management Salary Survey. The survey provides comprehensive details of remuneration packages currently paid to Britain's professional staff, managers and directors (including HR).

The table below shows the gender profile of the HR profession and of all managerial specialisms, by responsibility level.

UK HR profession and all UK managers: Gender split by seniority level
	Proportion of female HR professionals	Proportion of female managers
Chief executive	-	18.2%
Director	42.5%	36.1%
Senior Function Head	52.6%	44.3%
Function Head	64.9%	44.8%
Department Manager	69.6%	47.8%
Section Manager	73.7%	50.8%
Professional Level 4 (Operates at senior level but has limited management responsibility)	68.6%	51.3%
Professional Level 3 (Operates with some limited autonomy)	76.7%	51.0%
Professional Level 2 (Operates as a competent professional with minimum supervision)	74.4%	53.4%
Professional Level 1 (Operates within a defined role, but may have some limited autonomy in how tasks are delivered.)	83.5%	54.5%
Entry Level	86.%	58.9%
Total	75.8%	50.5%
Source: XpertHR Salary Surveys.

Across all managerial specialisms, just over half (50.5%) of postholders are female. But when the focus is narrowed to the HR profession, this figure rises sharply: HR is just over three-quarters female (75.8%).

Women are more likely to achieve executive positions in HR than across all managerial specialisms. For example, 42.5% of HR directors are female, compared with 36.1% of directors in other areas.

But women are also more heavily concentrated at the lower responsibility levels in HR. This is most clearly illustrated at entry level. Some 86% of entry level HR professionals are female, compared with 58.9% among the wider managerial population.

The gender pay gap is also generally lower in HR than across all UK managerial roles.

Is the IT profession the mirror image of HR?

The UK IT profession would appear to be almost the diametric opposite of HR, at least in terms of gender profile.

In stark contrast to HR, the IT profession is male-dominated. Data from the XpertHR Salary Surveys Computer Staff survey reveal that the UK IT profession was 76.6% male in 2010. As has been noted above, HR was found to be 75.8% female.

Another contrast to HR is that the gender profile of the IT profession appears static. The 2010 figure for the proportion of male IT professionals is all but unchanged from the gender profile recorded for the IT profession a decade previously. Back in 2000, the UK IT profession was found to be 76.5% male.

UPDATE 1 (Monday 23 May 2011): Equality & Diversity HR specialist Anne Tynan has posted some immediate responses to the data discussed in this post, via Twitter. She has put out a request for any data that might be available on the representation within the UK HR profession of disabled people and/or of BME (Black & Minority Ethnic) people. XpertHR Salary Surveys does not collect data on such aspects of the HR profession. But if any XpertHR readers know of reliable sources for such data, please post links to them via the comments box below.

Anne also draws interesting parallels between the domination by women (in terms of numbers) of the HR profession and that seen in  medicine/veterinary medicine: " 010 survey vet professions p. 26 : Vets 50/50 male/female, Vetnurses 98% female. Report has other personal stats http://tinyurl.com/3wd9pu6"

UPDATE 2 (Tuesday 24 May 2011): Leading UK HR blogger Rick has published a new blog post, entitled The feminisation of HR (Part 2), in which he presents his own analysis of the data discussed here.

UPDATE 3 (Thursday 26 May 2011): My colleague Laura Chamberlain has started a LinkedIn discussion on the topic "Is the proportion of women in HR in decline?" (membership of Personnel Today HR Directors LinkedIn group required). This discussion has generated the following response from Hilary Wilson:

In my opinion we need more men in HR, we are disproportionately represented by women and this leads to a perception that HR is a 'womans' job, although I balance that with the fact that I'm a woman!. With a stronger drive for HR professionals to have business experience and not be died in the wool HR practitioners, I would expect that more men will enter HR - albeit still at the higher levels.The question really is how should we encourage more men to join HR earlier and balance HR entering and being more successful in other careers too.

UPDATE 4 (Thursday 26 May 2011): Join the discussion on issues raised here over on Focus.com: Is the proportion of women in HR in decline?

See also:

• Is 'pink-collar ghetto' an apt definition for the HR profession?  We look at the issues raised by a thought-provoking post from US HR blogger Naomi Bloom.
• Do we need to redress the gender imbalance in HR? Does the gender imbalance in HR need to be redressed? If so, how? And if not, why not?
  
• Is the proportion of women in HR in decline? The UK HR profession in 2011 continues to be dominated by women - at least in numerical terms. But an analysis of changes in the gender profile of the UK HR profession from 1997 to the present day suggests that the representation of women in HR might have peaked in 2007, and could now be in gradual decline.
• The UK HR profession is 75.8% female Analysis of data on the gender profile of the UK HR profession from XpertHR Salary Surveys.
• A question for our male readers: Why did you choose HR? and A question for our female readers: Why did you choose HR? I am interested here in finding out why male HR professionals chose to enter the profession, and whether their experience in the profession has lived up to expectations.
  
• Is HR really a woman's world? Personnel Today investigates.
• The feminisation of HR and The feminisation of HR (Part 2) From the Flip Chart Fairy Tales blog.
• The Feminisation of HR Dorothy Dalton has published her own analysis of and investigation into the issues discussed here, in a new blog post. Dalton writes: "It seems that tough decisions or actions performed by an HR woman, will not be perceived as tough and decisive as if they were performed by a man. Culturally women are expected to exhibit softer skills, while men are expected to be more decisive. The criteria for evaluation is such that even when women are decisive they are not taken seriously, or get caught up in that old double bind as being too " aggressive". So until HR qualifications include, and mandate, a solid business base, rather than simply focusing on functional expertise and qualifications, then this situation is likely to be perpetuated. What other solutions could there be? What do you think?"