Gender quotas of company boards in the EU

Abstract

Women have been under-represented on company boards for a long period of time, both at the national and global level. The European Commission proposed a target of at least 40% female presence sitting on corporate boards in all Member States of publicly listed companies. For the purpose of this research, 6 semi-structured interviews were carried out in order to answer two main concerns with regards to a more equal gender representation on company boards. The participants who took part in this study were representatives of non governmental organisations, government organisations and an employers’ association.

The research objectives of this study were to find out why there is a dearth of women within company boards and whether or not quotas should be introduced to ensure a more equitable representations of the least represented sex. Through the semi-structured interviews carried out it became obvious that there are various factors as to why women are not found on company boards, such as direct or indirect discrimination which led to lack of positive female role models. Most of the participants believed that the introduction of gender quotas in Malta, and also in an EU context, are not enough and need to be accompanied by other positive measures to help increase female representation on company boards.

Although the European Commission’s proposal for the improvement in gender equality within company boards has come to a standstill, the European Commission has put gender equality on its agenda. This means that new projects and proposals can be provided in order to improve the situation.