Half of women on boards support quotas, but their male colleagues say no, finds survey

Thailand's Prime Minister-elect Yingluck Shinawatra meets with her economic team at the Puea Thai Party's headquarters in Bangkok July 6, 2011. Yingluck held a strategy meeting on Wednesday to review urgent action to revitalise the economy, but business leaders fear her populist wage policies will spark a surge in inflation. Yingluck won a landslide election victory on Sunday, backed by votes from the poor lured by promises such as wage rises, a household debt moratorium and better welfare and healthcare. — Half of women on corporate boards support quota systems to correct gender imbalances, but their male colleagues disagree, a study found.

Image: REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang

Half of women sitting on corporate boards of directors around the world support quota systems to fix stubborn gender imbalances in the boardroom, but less than 10 percent of their male colleagues agree, said a study released this week.

Female directors are also more likely than men to approve of term limits and mandatory retirement ages to change corporate board membership, said the survey by Harvard Business School researchers, the WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD) Foundation and Spencer Stuart, a consulting firm.

Global representation of women on corporate boards and among corporate executives. — Image: Peterson Institute and EY research

Asked how they arrived in their board appointments, 39 percent of women said their gender was a significant factor.

Just 1 percent of men said the same, said the survey released on Wednesday.

Men and women were divided as well on the reasons that female board membership remains low, said the survey, which culled responses from more than 4,000 male and female directors from 60 nations.

Male directors, particularly older men, say there is a "lack of qualified female candidates," it said.

But female directors say diversity is not a board priority and traditional networks tend to be male-dominated, it said.

"It's often hard to see an informal 'network' if you are in the middle of it, but you can see it very clearly when you're on the outside," WCD chairwoman Susan Stautberg said in a statement.

Forty-nine percent of female directors supported quotas to promote board diversity, compared to 9 percent of male directors.

Women younger than 55 were more likely than older women to support such quotas, the survey said.

Women hold one in eight corporate board seats worldwide, according to research by the global consulting firm Deloitte, which analyzed board membership in 49 nations.

Board quotas have been set up in several European nations, and a European Commission proposal seeks to make 40 percent of corporate boards female in the next four years.

Among women, more than 40 percent favor government regulations that require boards to disclose the steps they are taking to promote diversity, while just 14 percent of male directors agree, the research by Harvard, WCD and Spencer Stuart found.