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Growth of Women in UK Boardroom stagnates as Asian counterparts go from strength to strength


19th March 2007


The percentage of women in senior management positions in UK medium sized businesses is trailing South Eastern and East Asian companies by a significant margin, according to Grant Thornton's International Business Report (IBR), which was released 8th March 2007 and covers the findings of 7,200 privately held businesses across 32 countries.


The UK manages only a mid table ranking, with 64% of businesses employing women in senior management positions, while the Philippines ranks top with 97% and China's economic boom continues unabated with women filling 91% of senior management positions.


Across the 600 UK companies that were surveyed, growth of women in senior roles has stagnated with a small rise of 2% between 2004 and 2007. In particular, sectors such as retail need stimulating - in which women occupy 55% of senior roles - to match their dominance of industries such those in the service sector (76%) and other industries including public sector, utilities and agriculture, forestry & fishing where 86% participate in the senior management of the business. Alysoun Stewart, head of Grant Thornton's Strategic Services Group, says: "At first sight it may seem staggering that our supposedly enlightened western democracy lags behind countries such as the Philippines, mainland China and Thailand. This clearly challenges the commonly held perception that East Asia is less developed than the UK both economically and in the area of gender equality."


"Given the numbers of female graduates entering careers, and the fact that recent research indicates that women's pay is actually slightly ahead of men's between the ages of 22 and 29, the UK's lack of progress is most likely to be attributable to the continuing issues surrounding working practices that do not allow parents to easily balance work and family responsibilities.  The introduction of quotas would be one possible (although not popular) way to overcome this and has proved successful in Scandinavian countries, where women's representation on boards has grown rapidly in the past two years, whereas it has hardly changed in the rest of Western Europe," she continues.


With an average of 19% of women in the senior management of the business, the UK exceeds the EU average by 2% but again trails East Asia, which registered an average of 23%. In this area, the Philippines also ranks highest of all the 32 countries questioned, with 50% of women employed in the senior management of the companies. Stephen Weatherseed, international business partner, Grant Thornton, said: "In comparison with the UK, the business landscape in East Asia was established relatively recently, so the opportunity for women to participate in the senior management of business is far greater and the percentage of businesses with women in such roles is therefore higher."


Deputy Minister for Women Meg Munn said;  "The business case for making the most of our women’s skills is clear - enabling women to move into higher paid-occupations and roles could be worth between £15 billion and £23 billion a year to the UK economy according to the Women and Work Commission.  More than 50% of women working part time are in roles that are below their skill level.  That is why the Government recently launched an action to tackle the barriers to women's full participation in the workplace and the role employers have to play in tackling the issue of under representation of women in senior management roles is key." The results of the IBR also appear to support recent findings published by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), which states that it will take 60 years for women to win parity in City boardrooms. At present, they constitute only 10% of the directors of FTSE 100 companies in the UK. This picture is widely reflected across the rest of Europe with the EU showing no increase in the percentage of women in senior management since 2004 and stagnating at 17%. With NAFTA - which comprises North America, Canada and Mexico - increasing only slightly from 20% to 23%, the Far East clearly demonstrates the most significant growth of women in the senior management of business between 2004 and 2007, increasing from 17 to 23%.