When Philip Lowe took the helm at Australia’s central bank in 2016, his then-15-year-old daughter asked him what he intended to do to ensure women had equal chances to advance at the nation’s premier economic institution.
(Bloomberg) — When Philip Lowe took the helm at Australia’s central bank in 2016, his then-15-year-old daughter asked him what he intended to do to ensure women had equal chances to advance at the nation’s premier economic institution.
As Lowe clocks out for the last time on Friday and hands over the reigns to Michele Bullock — the first female governor of the Reserve Bank — he can tell his daughter that he’s done his share. Women accounted for 36% of managers at the RBA as of June 2022, from 31% when Lowe took over. Three of the central bank’s assistant governors now are women, compared with just one seven years ago.
“I am proud of the diversity and the greater number of women in senior leadership management at the RBA,” Lowe said in a brief interview last week after his final speech as governor. While the number of women in RBA is “reasonable,” Lowe wished it was more.
Bullock, who starts her term Monday, will have to keep the momentum to bring the ratio of female managers in Australia’s central bank closer to 50%, and boost the total headcount of women in central bank on par with the national average of 48% compared with its 43%.
During his term, Lowe bolstered the number of female executives, deepened the pool of women candidates, and also sought to reverse the trend of a shrinking pipeline of female economists in Australia.
The outgoing governor also reached out to schools and universities to encourage more girls to become economists, seeking “to try and arrest that decline and bring about more diversity,” said Besa Deda, chair of Australian Business Economists. An RBA research in 2020-2021 found that girls in high school were less likely than their male counterparts to find economics interesting.
The number of students enrolled in Year-12 economics in Australia has plunged 70% since the early 1990s, while university-level enrollments have flatlined. In the early 1990s, there were roughly equal numbers of males and females studying economics in high school.
“We’ve had a number of women elevated to senior leadership positions in Australia, not just in economics, and this might just be a key turning point,” according to Deda.
In recent times, Danielle Wood has been installed as the first female head of the Productivity Commission and Anna Hughes became the first female chief executive officer of the Australian Office of Financial Management, the government’s debt management body.
RBA Assistant Governor Luci Ellis, one of the women promoted by Lowe, is moving to Westpac Banking Corp. next month to succeed Bill Evans. Westpac will become the first of Australia’s big four lenders to have a female chief economist.
The elevation of women to senior ranks in central banking reflects a global trend with the US Federal Reserve now boasting its most diverse leadership team in history. The European Central Bank is also led by former French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.
Lowe departs after having faced some of the most intense scrutiny of an RBA governor — including having a cameraman stationed permanently outside his home during the current tightening cycle. The central bank has raised interest rates by four percentage points since May 2022 in its most aggressive rate-hike campaign in more than 30 years.
While debate over Lowe’s policy performance as governor will persist, his success in elevating women is unlikely to be questioned.
“The feedback is that Michele Bullock is a very inclusive leader as well and she’ll pick up from where Phil left off,” Deda said.
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