Targets with teeth

Boardroom gender quotas have hidden value

Boardroom gender quotas are not a cure-all. A new global study has found that forcing companies to put more women on boards hasn't helped to redress the gender imbalance among senior executives. It adds to the growing body of evidence which suggests that mandating change at the top doesn't have a trickledown effect. Yet that's no reason to dismiss the idea entirely.

The study of 1,071 companies across six continents by the Cambridge Judge Business School found a big disconnect between the number of women in the boardroom and those in other executive positions. Take Norway, which introduced a 40 per cent female quota for boards back in 2003: women made up just 15 per cent of executive teams at companies covered by the report. That's a lower percentage than in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand, none of which have minimum requirements for female directors.

Compulsory rules have also been tarnished by tokenism. Last year, Indian tycoons responded to a requirement that they have at least one female board member by appointing wives and even stepmothers as directors. For accomplished professional women, quotas can feed the perception that their promotions are an exercise in box-ticking rather being based on merit.

Yet for all their flaws, quotas are bringing more balance to the boardroom. From Germany to Malaysia, companies that were stuck in the dark ages are being forced to change. The implicit threat of quotas is also a big reason why voluntary targets in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia have been surprisingly successful in encouraging companies to appoint more female directors.

The Cambridge Judge study suggests other ways of boosting the number of women in the executive suite: countries could enshrine gender diversity requirements in corporate governance codes, and set term limits for directors. More widely, employers must rethink their approach to the division of responsibility when it comes to caring for children and other relatives.

The reality is that there is no single solution to bringing gender equality to the workplace. Quotas and targets focusing on the boardroom are just the start. But that is no reason to abandon them.