By AWIE FOONG AND DEIRDRE LANDER

SINGAPORE and Hong Kong share many similarities. However, they are also close rivals in many areas. In recent years, Singapore appears to have topped Hong Kong in several economic rankings. For instance, Singapore placed above Hong Kong in the 2009 ranking of the world's easiest place to do business and the Globalization Index 2007 for foreign trade and investment. Singapore is also currently the most competitive country in Asia, while Hong Kong is third behind Japan.

It is a slightly different story, however, when it comes to gender equality.

According to the 2008 Global Gender Gap ranking by the World Economic Forum, Singapore is only ranked 33rd among a list of 42 high-income nations. More significantly, its overall ranking has slipped from 65 in 2006 to 84 in 2008. The ranking suggests that, compared to other developed countries, the gender gap in Singapore is still of considerable magnitude.

There is anecdotal and survey evidence to support this. For instance, there have been constant complaints about pregnant mothers not given their maternity benefits or losing their job, according to advocacy group Aware.

In addition, there are fewer women holding top positions across most sectors, according to the International Business Report 2007 by Grand Thornton. Singapore is ranked seventh in Asia with only 67 per cent of companies having women in senior positions. Hong Kong is fourth with 83 per cent.

While these studies provide useful statistics regarding the socio-economic and employment status of women workers, they fall short in explaining how women themselves perceive the gender gap at work. A separate study on employee work attitudes, conducted bi-annually by Watson Wyatt, provides some interesting insights into gender differences and gaps from the employee perspective.

The global WorkAttitudes survey takes an in-depth look into the work attitudes of employees in 30 countries across the globe. The Asian segment of the study, known as WorkAsia, surveys 12 Asian countries, including Hong Kong and Singapore.

The respondents are asked a series of questions about their work attitudes, perceptions about various organisational practices, as well as the factors that attract and retain them.

Overall, male employees in both countries appear to enjoy a higher promotion rate, with an 8 per cent edge over the females. Male employees are also more motivated to join and leave an organisation for financial reasons such as pay and benefits, whereas females count nature of work, work/life balance and stress as key factors.

Comparison of the work attitudes between males and females provides a stark contrast between the gender gap in the two countries. As shown in Figure 1, there seems to be little difference between work attitudes of female and male employees in Hong Kong. Overall, female employees in Hong Kong appear to be at least as satisfied at work as their male colleagues. Compared to Singapore, organisations in Hong Kong appear to have done a far better job in maintaining gender equality, as judged by women's own ratings of their workplaces.

On the contrary, the gender gap appears to be substantial and significant in Singapore but not in Hong Kong. Female employees in Singapore responded less favourably than their male counterparts in all work attitude dimensions.

Consequently, it is not a surprise that female employees in Singapore are far less engaged than the males. Employee engagement is a combination of both commitment (that is, willing to contribute to the organisation's success) and line of sight (that is, know what to do to make the organisation successful). Both scores for female employees are far below the males.

Poor engagement can pose substantial human capital risks to the organisation.

Research in employee engagement by Watson Wyatt and others has consistently shown that employee engagement has a direct impact on companies' bottom line. In order to cultivate stronger engagement among female employees, organisations in Singapore need to pay more attention to the gender disparities in the workplace and consider harmonising the treatments towards males and females.

Our results echo the latest Gender-related Development Index ranking by the United Nations Development Programme, where Hong Kong is ranked 57 places above Singapore.

It is evident that Singapore has a lot to catch up with.

Businesses should not consider gender equality as just something that's nice to have, because our study also shows that dissatisfied female employees are less engaged.

Narrowing the gender gap at work makes perfect business sense as it helps to re-engage female employees, increase productivity and ultimately improve the bottom line.

In the battle of the two cities, Hong Kong emerged the clear winner. The results may be a reflection of the abilities of Hong Kong companies to meet the expectations of their male and female employees equally. But an interesting question also surfaces: Do female employees in Hong Kong have lower expectations than the males? After all, it remains a fact that fewer women in Hong Kong have made it to the top of the organisational ladder. This, of course, is an interesting topic for future study.

The writers are, respectively, senior research associate of the Asia-Pacific research and innovation centre and head of human capital group at Watson Wyatt Worldwide. The views expressed are their own.

This article was first published in The Business Times.