Glenn Stevens: The exit interview
Attracting more women to the Reserve Bank of Australia needs to intensify, even if the central bank is confronting a basic problem that its main sources of graduates – economics and information technology – tend to be dominated by men.
Governor Glenn Stevens conceded that while the bank has thought hard about gender quality of opportunity it still has work to do in luring more women into its service.
"I would like us to be doing better than we are," Mr Stevens said.
Currently around 31 per cent of the bank's management are women, with a target of lifting that to 35 per cent in 2020 and eventually to 40 per cent.
Odds stacked against
Mr Stevens said this task was made more difficult by the fact that there tends to be two males for every female economics graduate.
"In our recent recruiting we've done a fair bit better than that ratio, is my understanding," he said, adding that incoming governor Philip Lowe was looking at schemes to support the study of economics in schools for girls.
The problem is mirrored in the bank's increased hiring of IT graduates. "It's hard to find enough women."
Asked to speculate when Australia might have its first female Reserve Bank governor, Mr Stevens said: "Well, not for seven years, but after that, who knows?"