Bridging gender gaps unlocks valuable investment opportunities. Companies that invest in women and support women’s empowerment have the potential to harvest overlooked opportunities and outperform their competitors.
Gender-Equality Score is derived by Equileap Scorecard on the basis of 19 criteria centered on women leadership in workforce, compensation, positive policies, and transparent and fair governance towards women.
Fund name |
Gender equality grade |
Gender equality rank percentile |
Gender equality score |
Expense ratio (%) |
1-year return (%) |
Pax Ellevate Glbl |
A |
98.6th |
52 / 100 |
0.55 |
4.29 |
Saturna |
A |
93.4th |
49 / 100 |
0.75 |
16.44 |
Pax Large Cap Fund |
A |
94.6th |
47 / 100 |
0.95 |
14.69 |
Green Century MSCI |
A |
87.2th |
47 / 100 |
1.28 |
-2.26 |
Calvert |
A |
87th |
47 / 100 |
1.15 |
4.39 |
Pax MSCI EAFE ESG |
A |
86.4th |
46 / 100 |
0.49 |
-4.25 |
Praxis Value Index |
A |
92.2th |
46 / 100 |
0.86 |
-4.37 |
Boston Common ESG |
A |
91.6th |
46 / 100 |
1 |
9.53 |
Green Century Equity |
A |
91.5th |
46 / 100 |
1.25 |
13.6 |
Boston Common ESG |
A |
81.5th |
45 / 100 |
1 |
5.48 |
Source: www.asyousow.org, www.genderequalityfunds.org , Equileap Scorecard, UN Women’s Empowerment Principles
While all selected funds have sustainable investing mandate or are members of The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US-SIF), some of the funds with high gender equality do not score well on other impact dimensions. For instance, the top two funds, Pax Ellevate and Saturna Sustainable Equity, have high exposure to prison industry. Others, including Green Century and Calvert International Equity are exposed to military weapons industries, and Praxis is engaged in deforestation in spite of its sustainability mandate.
Gender equality funds (www.genderequalityfunds.org) develops women empowerment scores for greater transparency and accountability, which helps investors to direct their investment allocation. Broad index allocation shows wide disparity. S&P500 index overall grades A for gender equality, however, small-cap Russell 2000 scores F, pointing to a persisting gender gap when accounting for bottom two-thirds of a broad investable U.S. stock market.