Tech companies still lag in gender diversity

The new studies reported that gender diversity in the tech companies has improved over the last five years. But the reports showed that the tech boards still lag on the gender diversity compare to other business sectors. The report said that the region's most gender diverse businesses are in the retail, biopharmaceuticals and financial services.

According to Reuters, a new study from the University of California found that more than one third of 223 largest publicly trade companies headquartered in the Bay Area had either zero or just one top position held by a woman. The number showed an improvement from 2010, which almost two-thirds of Bay Area companies had either zero ot one top position held by a woman.

The tech companies in the Bay Area have been releasing diversity statistics reporting that around 25% of their top employees are women. While the UC Davis study reported that Apple ranked No. 25, Facebook ranked No. 30 and the search engine Google ranked No. 68 on gender diversity.

Other tech companies Intel which said it would spend $300 million over five years to improve gender diversity ranked No.48, and the networking company Cisco Systems ranked No. 41.

Meanwhile, other study report according to Equilar also claimed that S&P 500 technology companies have an improvement in gender diversity. The percentage of female onboards in the tech companies increased from 13.7% in 2010 to 18.3% in 2014. The numbers of female directors on S&P boards jumped from 15.7% in 2010 to 19.8% in 2014.

The Equilar report stated that the number S&P 500 tech companies that had boards with more than one in five females increased from 17 companies in 2010 to 29 companies in 2014.

Frontier Communications has been the only company which has as much as five female directors on its board of 12 members in 2014, or represent 40%.

According to CNN Money, there are 24 of 72 tech companies in the S&P 500 that have one female board member in 2014. There are five tech companies in the S&P 500 that have zero female on boards including Amphenol, Equinix, Garmin, Linear Technology, and Qorvo.

The Equilar report suggested that Frontier Communications has the highest female percentage on its board among other tech companies, with a board that is 42% female. Other companies such as Apple has two women from seven of board members, or the board is 29%. Google's board is 27% female, Facebook's is 25%, and Oracles has 18% female on its board.

Other tech companies that have above average numbers of female on the boards including Yahoo, Verizon, AT&T, and Cisco.

However, despite recent gains, females only hold 6.8% of all leadership positions in the S&P 500 companies overall, while males occupy the other 93.2%.