does australia need quotas to get women on boards?

Does Australia need tougher legislation to improve the representation of women on boards around the country? Europe has been debating such laws, and evidence clearly supports similar efforts here at home.

The European Parliament has recently supported a legislation which would require companies to have at least 40% of their board to be made up of women. Although this policy does not extend to executive boards, it is a move in the right direction; away from a history in which women have been excluded from senior business positions.

On the 14th of October 2013, the European Parliament proposed that all public companies adopt a minimum objective to have women in 40% of non-executive board member positions by 2020. One of the most important aspects of the legislation is the requirement that companies that have less than 40% women on their non-executive boards adopt a new selection procedure which gives priority to qualified female candidates.

In a world in which gender equality is far from reality, especially in the business sector, this European proposal is positive; and hopefully will be implemented in other regions, where statistics show that women are still largely underrepresented.

As noted by the WomenOnBoards Governmental agency in Australia for example, only 3% of the large corporation, ASX’s 200 chairs, and 2% of its CEOs, are female. Only 10% of ASX’s 200 board directors are female, and nearly half (47%) of Australia’s top companies have no women on their boards at all.

The good news is that the representation of women on boards and in top business positions has in fact increased over time in Australia. However, statistics show that this has only occurred in sectors with measurable gender balance targets. According to the Boardroom Diversity Index for 2013, it is only in the Governmental sector in Australia that we are seeing women making more than 30%.

In the public sector, the representation of women on boards saw a dramatic rise after the former federal government ‘set mandatory targets of 40% women on its boards by 2015’. While in Australia there now tends to be a widespread rhetoric that women and men should have equal representation on boards and in directive positions, evidence shows that this is only reality when specific policies are put in place which require equal representation.

The target of 40% female representation is only in place for government boards, but the European parliament proposed policy requires the 40% target to be adopted by all companies in the public sector. While the policy has been criticized for not extending to executive boards; the policy reflects progressive ideas, with which Australia should follow suit.

It is clear from statistical evidence that for Australia to have any hope of achieving gender equality in the business sector and on boards, it needs to adopt policy – like Europe – which legislates that companies achieve minimum quotas of female employees.

Criticism of the European proposal has included the suggestion that the ‘measures may in the future include positive discrimination – hiring female candidates over equally qualified male candidates’. However, as European companies still tend to employ males to boards, despite the increasing number of women qualified for the positions, this seems hardly a realistic concern.

In Australia this is similarly the case. While there are now more females than males with a tertiary education and other qualifications, males still tend to be employed more often than females to directive boards, and other high status occupational positions. There are plenty of women with the merit for board positions; it is simply a matter of seeing them.

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