Parity continues to make progress in the management bodies of major European companies. This is the main finding of a report published on Tuesday 27 May by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), which assesses the gender balance on boards of directors and in financial institutions in the EU.
By October 2024, the proportion of women on the boards of the largest publicly listed companies had risen to 34.7%, compared with 19.8% ten years earlier.
This progress is mainly due to various actions taken in countries that have introduced binding quotas.
And there is good reason for this: in the nine Member States in question (Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Austria and Greece), women account for an average of 40.1% of board members, compared with 32.5% in countries that have adopted softer measures and just 17.8% in those that have not taken any action.
The report notes that “National gender quotas drive greater gender balance on corporate boards”.
This development should also be taken into account in the context of the ‘Women on Boards’ Directive, which was adopted in November 2022 (see EUROPE 13551/18).
The text imposes a threshold of 40% of persons of the under-represented sex among non-executive directors, or 33% within the board as a whole. To date, only France and Spain have transposed the directive, in April and August 2024 respectively.
According to the EIGE, 221 of the 558 largest listed companies in the EU (i.e. 40%) do already meet the 40% target for women non-executive directors, and 59% of the companies meet the 33% threshold for all directors.
The imbalance remains significant, however, at the highest levels. Only 23.3% of executive positions are held by women, compared with 37.2% of non-executive positions. Nevertheless, measures relating to job roles are beginning to be put in place, particularly in France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/h3k (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)