Report attacks boys' club culture
Perth has a corporate "boys' club" that stops women from getting ahead at work and contributes to WA trailling the country in gender equality, a study has found.
The parochial and "blokey" culture that excludes women from networking and limits access to jobs and promotions has been dubbed a "Perth ceiling".
Perth also has fewer childcare places per capita than any other capital city and women are less likely to have support from a partner or extended family.
The two-year study was commissioned by think tank Committee for Perth and based on interviews with 173 women and men doing business in WA, including chief executives, senior executives, graduates and women who have left the workforce.
It is believed to be the first of its kind to focus on a single city.
Committee for Perth chief executive Marion Fulker said WA had half the national average of women chief executives, fewer than half the proportion of female directors, fewer than one-third of the national average of chairwomen and the biggest gender pay gap in Australia.
"By any standards there's no equity and equality in those figures," she said.
Many of the women and men who took part in the study said Perth had a highly masculine corporate and social culture that differed from the east coast, which was attributed in part to the historical importance of the male-dominated mining, energy and construction sectors.
As a result there were "heightened levels of direct and indirect discrimination" and bias in recruitment, selection and promotion.
The study found Perth was "far more tightly networked" than other Australian cities and all but a few of the women made reference to a boys' club.
Women struggled to access critical corporate networks either because they were not invited, felt unwelcome or because of conflicts with family responsibilities.
"I think women suffer terribly in this town with networking," one woman who took part in the study on the condition of anonymity said. Another suggested the "continued existence of the boys' club was down to connections formed at exclusive private schools.
Others said attitudes towards women were indicative of 1950s, 60s and 70s-era values.
