Solactive and Equileap on Tuesday announced a new family of indexes that track companies taking the lead in the area of workplace gender equality

According to a press release, the Solactive Equileap Europe Gender Equality Index, Solactive Equileap US Gender Equality Index and Solactive Equileap Global Gender Equality Index all offer investors different geographic exposures to the same gender lens methodology. These indexes are designed to be used as the underlying baskets for investment products such as exchange-trade funds and structured products.

Solactive AG is a Frankfurt, Germany-based index provider in which more than US$100 billion has been invested in ETF assets linked to its products. Equileap, which is based in Amsterdam and London, works to accelerate progress toward workplace gender equality.

Equileap gathered data on more than 3,000 publicly listed companies in 23 countries and ranked them according to 19 gender equality criteria covering leadership, career development, work-life balance, equal pay, family leave, as well as health & safety. Solactive designed the indexes based on standard liquidity criteria, as well as a light ESG and in-depth gender screenings provided by Equileap.

Interest in gender-lens investing is growing, but it remains an investment niche. Perhaps the best-known product in this space is the SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (SHE), which launched in March 2016 and tracks a market-cap weighted index that measures the performance of U.S. large-cap companies that are gender diverse in senior leadership positions.

The fund has grabbed nearly $290 million in assets and gained about 9 percent since inception compared to 19 percent for the S&P 500. Its expense ratio is 0.20 percent.

Elsewhere in the realm of workplace equality, the Workplace Equality Portfolio ETF (EQLT) launched in February 2014. This equal-weighted fund tracks an index consisting of publicly traded companies that support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality in the workplace.

EQLT has attracted just $13 million in assets but has annualized returns of 10.17 percent since inception, versus the S&P 500’s annualized gain of 10.58 percent during that period. It sports an expense ratio of 0.75 percent.