New research into female representation on the boards of Europe’s largest companies shows the UK has fallen from sixth to eighth place among 12 leading economies since 2011.
The UK has a below-average proportion of women compared to the other European countries in the study, at 23per cent of board positions. Norway leads the table on 39per cent.
The research was conducted by European Women on Boards, a network comprised of the Institute of Directors in the UK and similar associations in eight other countries. The report, which examined the boards of 600 large European companies between 2011 and 2015, found the percentage of women almost doubled in this period, from 14 to 25per cent.
It said the improvement across Europe made the UK’s relative position look worse, despite significant improvement since the coalition government adopted a 25per cent target for women on boards in 2011. Only Belgium and Italy have increased the proportion of female directors more than the UK in this time.
Moreover, female directors in the UK are more likely than the European average to serve on the important nomination, remuneration and audit committees. The research also commends UK firms for the quality of their reporting on board appointments.
Lady Barbara Judge, chairman of the Institute of Directors, and member of the EWoB Advisory Board, said: “A particular cause for concern is the slow progress being made in appointing more women to executive positions. Only around three per cent of the chief executives of Europe’s 600 largest companies are women, and figure that has barely moved since 2011.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here