Although the PR industry is one of the few areas of the British economy where female directors are actually quite thick on the ground, it seems their counterparts in other industries are dwindling in number. The latest analysis from Cranfield business school of the FTSE 100 has found that the number of women holding executive directorships dropped in 2007 to 13% of the total whilst only 3% of chief executives were female. The Fortune 500 in the USA has only a slightly better record - there some 15% of directors are women. Despite the fact that women now account for 60% of all university graduates in the EU and USA, it’s a sorry fact that relatively few are making it to the boardroom or the partnership table. In Norway, the government decided to tackled this in a radical way by mandating that all pubic companies would need to have at least 40% of their directorships in female hands by the beginning of 2008 or face heavy fines. So has it worked? The short answer seems to be, not really. Given the lack of women already working at senior management level, what are now known in Norwegian business circles as ‘golden skirts’ have ended up with as many as 30 directorships each, leaving us wondering just how effective they can really be in each role. Nice try Norway, but more long-term planning seems to be vital if this solution to a male dominated workplace is ever going to work.
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