Celebrated on March 8 this year, International Women’s Day (IWD) is now 100 years old; this global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future first began in 1911.

IWD is an official holiday in many countries around the world from China to Russia to Ukraine to Vietnam. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, and colleagues with flowers and small gifts.

For its centenary year, the theme for IWD 2011 is “Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women.”

This theme resonates clearly with ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) because our aim is to provide opportunity and access to people of ability around the world, supporting our members throughout their careers in accounting, business and finance – whether they are women or men. We also work to promote diversity in business at all levels of seniority as a way of enhancing business performance.

Looking globally, there are more women in the boardroom than in 1911, greater equality in legislative rights and more women acting as role models in every aspect of life than 100 years ago. It could be thought that women have gained true equality.

However, the fact is that many women are still not paid equally to that of their male colleagues; women are still not present in equal numbers in business or politics, with many women finding it difficult to set up in business. And as the IWD website says, globally, women’s education and health is worse than that of men. There are still equality barriers that women face on a daily basis.

Making Improvements
The latest available figures from 2010 show that women make up an increasing proportion of new entrants to the accountancy profession. Globally, women make up almost 50% of the accountancy trainee intake. Over half of members and students of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) are women.

So have all the problems been solved? Two years ago, ACCA Singapore worked with Robert Half International to understand the role of women in the financial services sector, to gauge their concerns and ambitions for the future.