The U.S. has the largest gap in the world between men and women when it comes to trust in business, a survey of more than 33,000 global respondents from PR firm Edelman shows.
The big picture: This gap is larger than developed market peers like Germany, France and the U.K., and much bigger than some emerging countries like South Africa, China and India.
- Asian countries Malaysia and Singapore, where women have a higher presence in asset management, were the only places where women trusted business more than men.
What it means: The report finds American women are far less trusting of their own employer, business overall and CEOs. While women were less trusting of institutions broadly, the study found that the "trust gap" was particularly large when it came to business.
- The study asked participants to rate their level of trust in business, media, government and NGOs.
The intrigue: This lack of trust is coinciding with a "profound" 22 percentage point increase in women's engagement in news, notes Lisa Kimmel, president and CEO of Edelman Canada, who oversaw the report.
- "That's really interesting because despite the fact that they are less trusting of all the institutions that we measure, it's not leading to apathy. It's actually leading to action."
Go deeper: The gender wealth and savings gap has a long way to go