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Newsletter June 2008 |
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| PRESS RELEASE |
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One out of ten board members is femaleThe top 300 European companies now have 9.7% of women on their boards, up from 8.5% in 2006 and 8% in 2004. Of a total 5,146 board seats, women occupy 501. European champion Norway jumped to having 44.2% women on boards as a result of quota legislation . Without Norway, the European growth rate falls back to 9.1% confirming the average growth rate of around 0.5 percentage points over each two year period from 2004 onwards. This development clearly demonstrates that quotas are an effective way to accelerate growth of female representation on boards.
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Apart from The Netherlands, the rest of Europe is moving glacially slow. The Netherlands has taken over the lead position in the first group of followers from the United Kingdom. With 12.3%, almost double the percentage of 2006 (6.5%), this country clearly benefits from the many private initiatives and press attention for the issue of women’s underrepresentation on boards in the past few years. The UK at 11.5% seems to have reached a standstill since the percentage has hardly moved since two years ago (11.4%) after an initial encouraging growth rate of 1.4 percentage points from 10% in 2004. Growth in France is below average, resulting in 7.6% women on boards from 7.3% in 2006. Germany recorded an average growth of women on boards, from 7.2% in 2006 to 7.8%. Norway’s impressive growth path to 44.2% women on boards (from 28.8% in 2006 and 22% in 2004) is followed at a lesser but still impressive pace by the other Scandinavian countries. Sweden posted 26.9%, up from 22.8% in 2006, whereas Finland and Denmark recorded 25.7% and 18.1% respectively (up from 20% and 17.9%). All Scandinavian countries continue to outperform the rest of Europe. Italy and Portugal remain Europe’s laggards, with Greece, Spain and Switzerland a little ahead. Marked by stagnation, the divide between these countries and the rest is increasing quickly. However, we expect to see some impact of Spain’s very recently introduced quota legislation in the next survey in 2010. |
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This third edition of the EuropeanPWN BoardWomen Monitor has been designed by the European Professional Women’s Network and |
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Join EuropeanPWN!Join Europe’s most vibrant network for professional women linking over 3500 members across Europe in on-line networking and regular speaker events in 17 cities.
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