Women on Boards of top companies globally

What does gender diversity on Boards look like around the world? The Meiava team did some desk research to find out the latest statistics.

France is making progress on gender diversity in the boardroom, leading its international counterparts with women representing 46 percent of board of directors on the SBF120. The United Kingdom and Australia follow with 34.3 percent and 33.6 percent respectively of board seats on the FTSE and ASX200 held by women. Japan is lagging significantly in boardroom gender diversity with just 8.4 percent of board roles held by women.

The following overview showcases the current state of Women on Boards in 9 countries - Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

See Meiava infographic below.

Australia[1]

33.6 percent of directors in the ASX 200 are women (as of May 2021)

Women comprised 42.6 percent of new appointments to ASX 200 boards in 2020.

36 women have been appointed to ASX200 Boards in 2021.

Canada [2]

Women represent only 15 percent of Canadian boards in 2018 – an increase of just four percentage points from 2015.

The Conference Board of Canada indicates that at the current rate in which women are being appointed to corporate boards, it will take another 17 years to achieve gender parity in Canada’s boardrooms. More than half (53 per cent) of the board seats that became vacant in 2018 went to men and about a quarter (23 per cent) were left unfilled or eliminated.

China [3]

In 2019, fewer than 10% of board directors at listed Chinese companies were female.

France[4]

In France, 46 percent of board of directors of the Société des Bourses Françaises (SBF 120) – (the top 120 publicly-traded companies) are women.

Only 12 companies (10 percent) in the SBF 120 are chaired by a woman (two in the CAC 40); 11 of them have a female CEO (one in the CAC 40).

Women hold 22 percent of positions on the executive or management committees of SBF 120 companies.

Forty-three percent of SBF 120 companies have fewer than 20 percent women on their executive committees, 11 percent have none.

France has a proposed new law that targets a 30% minimum of women in leadership roles by 2027 for companies with more than 1,000 employees, and 40% by 2030.

Germany

Just 13.02 percent of the board members of the 186 companies are women.[5]

33.19 percent of all supervisory boards of the 186 companies surveyed are women.[6]

Germany passed a new law requiring that from 2022, listed companies with management boards of more than three executives must appoint at least one woman to the C-suite.[7]

Hong Kong[8]

The percentage of female directors on Hong Kong listed companies was only 12.7 percent in 2020.

About one-third of Hong Kong-listed companies will need to appoint at least one female director by 2025 under a proposed new environment, social and governance (ESG) rules put forth by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX).

Japan

Women make up just 8.4% of board positions on listed companies in Japan, according to a March 2021 World Economic Forum report. [9]

United Kingdom[10]

More than a third (34.3%) of FTSE 350 board positions are now held by women. This represents an increase of more than 50 percent over the last 5 years, with 1,026 women in board roles.

Women represent 29.4% of leadership roles of FTSE 350.

United States[11]

Women represent 26.5% of the Board of Fortune 500 companies.

Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented. In 2020, women and minorities held 38% (2,253) of board seats for Fortune 500 companies. just 5.7% of Board members are minority women.

Sources:

[1] Australian Institute of Company Directors. Board Diversity Statistics. Board Diversity Statistics (companydirectors.com.au). Website accessed on 21 June 2021.

[2] The Conference Board of Canada. Women Remain Underrepresented In Canadian Boardrooms. 14 April 2021.

[3] NASDAQ. Chinese working women will rue three-child policy. 1 June 2021.

[4] RFI. French MPs approve quotas for more women in corporate management. 13 May 2021.

[5] FidAR. Proportion of women on the Supervisory Board. 22 March 2021.

[6] FidAR. Proportion of women on the Supervisory Board. 22 March 2021.

[7] CNN. Germany will require companies to put women executives on their boards. 24 November 2020.

[8][8] South China Morning Post. Women on boards: Hong Kong exchange wants to end all-male boardrooms, quicken progress on gender diversity in ESG shakeup. 14 June 2021.

[9] World Economic Forum. Why closing Japan's gender gap will be achieved with equality from the top. 30 March 2021.

[10] UK Government. Hampton-Alexander Review report. The changing face of business: number of women on FTSE boards up by 50% in just 5 years.

[11] Alliance for Board Diversity (ABD) and Deloitte. Missing Pieces Report: The Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards, 6th edition. 8 June 2021.