As per a recent study by global recruitment platforms MyHiringClub.com and Sarkari-Naukri.Info, India has been ranked 12th when it comes to women members’ presence on board. Titled ‘Women On Board 2020,’ the study has been conducted online and is based on a set of 7,824 listed companies across the world. Out of these 628 companies are Indian and 55 percent of them happen to have at least one woman director.
Statistically speaking, the current figures are a considerable improvement from last year marking an increase of 14 percent. Overall, the percentage of women directors on board has registered a jump of more than double worldwide, with the share standing at a total of 14.87 percent.
However, before we begin to rejoice in the fact that the figures have more than doubled up in comparison to the last two years’ statistics, the ground reality remains rather bleak. For starters, out of the total companies that participated in the study, 63 percent have just one woman director on board thus putting a big question mark on the independence of these directors.
The gnawing gap between the maximum board tenure for men and that for women also needs to be looked at. Over 46 percent of these women directors have held the position for less than a year with men easily crossing the two-year mark worldwide. Additionally, while approximately 54 percent of the total employees in Asia and 39 percent in India happen to be women, only a small fraction manages to make it to senior or even middle management levels.
And while we have all heard of the World Economic Forum‘s study that states that it’ll take over two decades to bridge the pay gap between genders, one is made to wonder if these women on-board members have real power or have been given honorary posts just to put up pretenses.
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