More than a half, 56%, of surveyed male accountants believe women in the profession can be just as successful as their male counterparts after a career break, while only 39% of women respondents agreed with this statement, according to the International Accounting Bulletin (IAB) women in the profession survey.
The survey also found that according to 577 respondents from around the world a career break was the most common reason hindering women to take on leadership position in the profession. The second most common reason was gender discrimination by decision makers followed by the need for flexible/part-time working by women.
IAB found support for boardroom quotas is much higher in emerging regions such as Asia (55%) and Africa and the Middle East (62%) while extremely low among respondents from North America (15%) and Australia and New Zealand (28%).
The IAB also found more female respondents were more in favour of quotas (44%) then male respondents (22%).
The IAB Women in Accounting survey was conducted in the first two weeks of March 2014 in the form of an online anonymous survey. Almost 600 accountants from around the world shared their views. Most of the respondents (82%) were women.
Read the full survey results and views from senior female leaders in the profession in the March edition of IAB, published on Thursday 20 March.