Part
01
of six
Part
01
Demographic Insights - Administration Workforce Category
The typical global administrative employee is female, aged between 41-55 years, and earn an annual income between $65,000 and $69,999. Additionally, they are likely to have some form of college education, but not a college degree. Additional details have been provided below.
Gender Mix
- According to a survey by the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP), females make up 81.22% of the global administrative workforce, while males make up 18.07%.
- The remaining 0.71% included those who declined to answer and those whose preferred gender was not listed.
Age
- The typical age of administrative assistants is 41-55 years, with 38.55% of respondents reporting to be in this age bracket.
- Other age-related demographic data include:
Educational Background
- 38.28% of respondents in the IAAP survey reported having some form of college education, but not a college degree, while 28.78% have a bachelor's or equivalent four-year college degree.
- 17.99% have a two-year college degree, while 5.83% have a high school degree or a GED.
- 4.79% of respondents have a master’s or professional degree (MA, JD, MBA, etc), while 4.09% attended vocational school.
- Only 0.14% and 0.10% of respondents have a doctorate and less than a high school degree, respectively.
Dominant Qualifications
- 31.70% of respondents have a current IAAP Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) certification, while 4.09% have a CAP that they have not recertified.
- According to Statistics Canada, "completion of secondary school is usually required," as well as the "completion of a one- or two-year college or other programs for administrative assistants or secretaries."
Typical Salary
- The typical annual base income for those in the administrative industry is $65,000 - $69,999 with 20.96% of the survey respondents indicating so.
- Other wage breakdown include:
- 55.47% report earning additional compensation for the extra time they work outside regular hours, while 42.43% do not.
- 58.05% of survey respondents are paid per hour, while 41.95% are paid a monthly salary.
Differences Between Permanent and Temporary working
- Only 2.07% of respondents in the IAAP survey were working part-time (less than 37 hours) without the help of an agency, while 0.27% were working part-time via a temporary agency.
- In the United Kingdom, men make up 32.32% of full-time administrative and secretarial occupation workforce, while women make up 67.68% of the workforce. [calculations below]
- However, when it comes to temporary administrative and secretarial occupation workforce, men only make up 9.09% while women make up 90.91%. [calculations below]
Research Strategy
To provide demographic data on the global administrative workforce, we leveraged the survey by the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP). The survey recorded responses from 3,634 respondents who answered 62 questions. Respondents in the survey come from all around the world including countries such as Nigeria, United States, Canada, Philippines, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Egypt, Germany, Bangladesh, Australia, Brazil, Israel, and more than 40 other countries. While the survey covered demographic data on both full-time and part-time employees, the survey report did not bifurcate the survey results by permanent or temporary workers.
To provide data distinguishing permanent or temporary workers we consulted platforms that provide job data such as Monster, but these sites mostly focus on salary data and job ads. We also explored global open data platforms such as Open Data Inception and USAFacts, but these platforms did not have any data concerning the demographics of the global administrative workforce. Another approach we explored was to select a few countries and research if demographic data was available showing the difference between their temporary and permanent administrative workforce. The countries we explored were the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, we only found data relating to the difference between male and female employees who work full-time or part-time in the United Kingdom.
Calculations
United Kingdom
- Number of worker working full-time in the administrative and secretarial sector: 2,101,000
- Number of men working full-time: 679,000
- Number of women working full-time: 1,423,000
Percentage of women working full-time: 100% - 32.32% = 67.68%
- Number of part-time workers in the administrative and secretarial sector: 1,078,000
- Number of men working part-time: 98,000
- Number of women working part-time: 980,000
Percentage of women working part-time: 100% - 9.09% = 90.91%