Despite progress, the number of women with decision-making power in the workplace in developing Asia continues to lag behind men.

To answer why, we recently looked at data on the gender leadership gap for 20 developing Asian economies plus Japan, the US, and Germany.

The analysis shows that while women comprise about 40% of the entire workforce, they are only about 14% of corporate boardroom members and senior management. Women’s share drops to below 10% if limited to the corporate boardrooms of private firms.

This comes in spite of efforts by many Asian countries to implement gender equality measures to increase the number of women in boardrooms and senior management positions.

The Malaysian cabinet approved in 2011 a policy mandating that women comprise 30% of senior management positions by 2016 in firms with more than 250 employees.