CIGNA CORPORATION | Gender Pay Gap at Cigna Corporation

Status
32.63% votes in favour
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Proposal number
6
Resolution details
Company ticker
CI
Lead filer
Undisclosed filer
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Social
ESG sub-theme
  • Diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI)
  • Remuneration or pay
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Health Care
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
Resolved: Shareholders request that Cigna publish annually, quantitative data assessing Cigna's gender pay gap, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information. A report adequate for investors to assess company strategy and performance, including relative opportunities for women to attain higher paying positions in the company, would include the percentage mean and median pay gap between all male and female employees, across race and ethnicity where appropriate, and would include base, bonus and equity compensation.v
Whereas clause
Whereas: The 2017 U.S. Census data on median earnings for full-time, year-round workers found that women made 80 percent of that of their male counterparts. The gap for African America and Latina women is 60 percent and 55 percent. At the current rate, women will not reach pay parity until 2059.

Research from Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, and Robeco Sam suggests more gender diverse leadership leads to superior stock price performance and return on equity. McKinsey states, "the business case for the advancement and promotion of women is compelling." Best practices include "tracking and eliminating gender pay gaps."
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Assessing if a company has a gender pay gap requires analyzing both equal pay and equal opportunity. This is most commonly done using adjusted and unadjusted (median) pay data. Median pay data is the key metric used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the U.S. Department of Labor, among others.
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A 2019 shareholder proposal asking Cigna for a Report on Gender Pay Gap received a 35.6 percent vote. Since then, Cigna has committed to "fairness in pay and opportunity for all of our employees, regardless of gender, race or ethnicity," and that it will "conduct annual pay equity reviews"1 and it stated that "Cigna's pay data indicates no material differences related to gender or race."2
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Yet, Cigna has not released any information that explains if this is adjusted or unadjusted pay data, identifies trends, or would allow investors and employees to determine the effectiveness of these policies.
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This is in stark contrast to Cigna's United Kingdom (UK) operations. Since 2018 the UK has mandated disclosure of both adjusted and unadjusted (median) gender pay data, demonstrating that the publication of such data is feasible and informative. Cigna UK provides an annual gender pay report that reports mean and median gender pay gap and bonus gap, pay quartiles, what the company does well, and areas for improvement. In 2019 Cigna UK reported a 25.1 percent mean and 22.5 percent median gender pay gap, and a 34.2 percent mean and 15.3 percent median bonus pay gap.3 These figures allowed stakeholders to identify an increase in the mean and median pay gap and a decrease in the mean and median bonus gap from 2018.
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Investors seek similar quantitative, comparable data to understand the effectiveness of Cigna U.S. pay gap policies.
Leading large-cap companies across industry sectors including Apple, Starbucks and Bank of New York Mellon, among others, have publicly committed to pay equity and published the results of gender pay assessments.

How other organisations have declared their voting intentions

Organisation name Declared voting intentions Rationale
Pathfinder Asset Management For Equal pay & equal opportunity are linked to better decision making and financial performance.

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