According to World Economic Forum, equal opportunities between men and women remain a myth. - Some of the biggest corporate players in the world are still ignoring feminine talent. This is the result of the World Economic Forum's “Corporate Gender Gap Report - 2010”. This report examined gender equality in 600 major companies in 16 sectors in 20 countries (Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States). The study reveals that “on International Women's Day today, the conclusions of the study get the alarm bells ringing. They demonstrate that the corporate world is not doing enough to achieve equal opportunities between men and women”. Despite progress made by Scandinavian, American and British groups leading in this field, the idea that many companies have been converted to egalitarianism or have become more open to women, “remains a myth”. Women's employment prospects remain quite traditional insofar as there is still a significant divide between countries where the percentage of working women is high and countries trailing behind. Countries that have the highest percentage of women employed at all levels are: the United States (52%), Spain (48%), Canada (46%) and Finland (44%). At the end of the queue we find India (23%), Japan (24%), Turkey (26%) and, more surprisingly, Austria (29%). Amongst all the different sectors, it is the service sector which has, on average, the biggest percentage of women working in it, especially in finance and insurance (60%), professional services (56%), media and leisure (42%). The sectors where women are least present are automobiles (18%), mining (18%) and agriculture (21%). Women also remain pigeonholed in low to medium categories of employment and are rarely in positions of responsibility. Only Norway, which has a binding law in this respect, has more than 40% of women on the boards of directors. There are only 5% of women in company director posts among the 600 companies surveyed. In certain countries, this number is a little higher: Finland (13%), Norway (12%), Turkey (12%), Italy (11%) and Brazil (11%). The question of equal pay is still a burning issue: 72% of companies surveyed have not tackled the question at all. Nonetheless, a positive trend is emerging: almost 40% of companies are beginning to think about setting objectives, quotas or other forms of positive discrimination in favour of women. (I.L./transl.fl)