Despite
women constituting almost half of the world’s population, the corporate world
is still dominated by men with very few female faces seen holding management
posts. As per Grant Thorton’s International Business Report (IBR) 2012, women
hold barely more than one in every five senior management roles
The worst situation
is seen in Japan, where as per the IBR, only five per cent of women held the
senior management posts in the country. After the recent appointment of Hideko
Kunii as the first female board member of the automobile giant, Honda, the
proportion would improve but the change would be very insignificant. As per the
report, Russia houses the maximum number of women in top stops with 42 per cent
followed by South East Asian countries having 32 per cent females in the
management. Situation is India is also not that great with only 14 per cent of
management posts currently held by women.
It is a general view
that the women population of the world has progressed in all fronts over last a
few years but in realty, the report points out that even today reasons like
raising of children and taking care of household is usually cited as the major
explanation for women not being able to make to the top spots. The report
further highlighted that just, “21 per cent of senior management roles globally
are held by women in 2012, a figure which despite much talk, has barely changed
since 2004 when it was 19 per cent.” Globally, fewer than one in 10 businesses
are led by women with 9 per cent of businesses have a female Chief Executive
Officers (CEO). Australia emerges as the country with the highest proportion of
female CEOs, where three in 10 businesses are led by women.
But with time
passing, all nations across the world are either started taking action towards
improving women representation or are in process of drafting guidelines. One of
the most recent moves came from the European Parliament which has given
approval to draft law for 40 per cent quota for female directors in European
Union companies. Norway is the first country in the world to impose a gender
quota, requiring nearly 500 firms, including 175 firms listed on the Oslo
bourse, to raise the proportion of women on their boards to 40 percent. Spain
also has a similar gender equality law as per which any company with more than
250 employees need to have at least 40 per cent women on their board by 2015.
In the United
Kingdom, the Government has called for at least 25 per cent of FTSE 100 boards
to be made up of women by 2015. Though Japan till now hasn’t had a well framed
law for ensuring increased women participation in business, but Japan’s Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe aims to have at least 30 per cent of women in executive
positions in the country’s companies by 2020. He also called for each Japanese
company to have at least one female executive.
Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/business/women-representation-low-in-global-corporate-world.html