Gender Quotas for Corporate Boards: Lessons learned from Norway Mari Teigen Utrecht 9 th December 2015

·World Economic Forum – Global Gender Report ·Norway 3 rd gender equality in general ·Norway 2 nd gender equality in economy and working-life ·BUT Norway 58 th gender balance in top-management positions Norwegian gender equality success story, but……

Men and women in top-positions in 4 sectors at the turn of the millennium (2001)

Why Norway introduced gender quotas for corporate boards? 5 ·High on the public agenda ·Men dominate business management ·Debate on corporate board quotas part of general debate on diversity management and profit of gender balance

Gender quotas for Norwegian corporate boards – Adopted 2003 – implemented

Gender quota legislation demands at least 40 percent of each gender represented on company board The quota legislation applies for: ·Public limited companies (stock-listed) (2008) ·Inter-municipal companies (2004) ·State owned companies (2004) ·Municipal companies (2009) ·Co-operative companies (2009)

Company Law: Demand of representation of both gender in the board In the boards of publicly limited, public and cooperative companies both gender should be represented as follows: 1. Where there are two or three members of the board, both genders should be represented 2. Where there are four or five members of the board: both genders should be represented with at least two 3. Where there are six to eight members of the board, both genders should be represented with at least three. 4. Where there are nine or more members of the board, each gender should be represented with at least 40 % 5. Rules 1 to 4 are the same as for election of deputy members

Sanctions A company that does not have a legal board, despite several warnings with the possibility of correcting the matter, will be subject to forced dissolution.

The impact of gender quota for corporate boards? Direct and indirect effects

Strong increase in boards subject to quota legislation (%) – but little ripple effects

CountryQuota %Adopted Compliance Norway Spain Iceland France Malaysia Italy (20 %) Belgium UAE At least one woman 2012Not specified India At least one woman Greenland Germany Countries with Gender Quotas for Corporate Boards (listed comp.)

·Has gender balance in corporate boards led to more gender balance in top- management? ·Has more gender balanced boards led to new forms of power concentration? QUESTIONS

·Registerdata – Business register ·Mapping of boards and top-management of the about 250 biggest companies in Norway ·Survey – questionnaire investigation ·Electronic survey to top-managers in 247 companies top-managers from 173 companies answered ·Interviews with people in the business sector Data sources

Has gender balance diffused from boards to top-management? ·Company types: ·Public limited companies (board quota) ·Publicly owned companies (board quota) ·Cooperative companies (board quota) ·Big private limited companies (NO quota)

First – general figures 2014

Across types of companies: Gender composition in TOP-MANAGEMENT

Across types of companies TOP-MANAGEMENT GROUPS with at least two women

·the biggest listed companies subject to gender quota regulations are the least successful when it comes to recruiting women to senior top- management ·BUT we do not have time-series data In other words

No ripple effects – BUT? Has the quota law succeeded because a few women circulate on many boards?

The golden skirts phenomenon – networks and power ·Prior to quota legislation, few women with multiple board memberships ·After quotas introduced: more women than men among those with three or more board positions ·Probably an immediate effect ·From 2008 to 2011 the number of board representatives with many positions have been in decrease

Men2,492,25 Women2,732,36 Average number of board positions among the most central, but most sit on only one board

In other words …. ·Some more «golden skirts» than «golden ties» ·General high turn- over among board members ·

·More women included in company boards, but few signs of spread to other company boards or to top-management positions In other words

·What are their views on gender quotas? ·What are their views on how to progress gender balance? ·And ·Why do they think men continue to dominate senior management? So: How do top-managers perceive the lack of gender equality progress?

To what extent do you agree that gender balance in boards will lead to gender balance in …..

What do you think is necessary to do to progress gender balance in top-management?

What do you think are main explanations as to why men dominate senior management?

·Women top-managers are more positive to gender quotas compared to men – both most positive to publicly owned companies ·Men and women agree that active recruitment is the most important – but men more often think there is a problem with the women – women more often with business life ·Women think there is a problem with (male- dominated) informal networks –men thinks there is not enough qualified women around In other words

Main findings ·Boards subject to gender quota legislation have changed from highly male-dominated to gender balanced ·Gender quotas have changed the international debate ·Still, little effect on senior management ·The development of gender balance in business is closely followed by media and politicians ·Is it too early to evaluate gender equality effects?