Asia Performs Miserably at Gender-Diversity, India-China Not Helping

China may arrest its favorite feminists on women’s day, but our powerful neighbor has still managed to outshine us, when it comes to seating competent women in corporate board rooms.

The Deloitte Global report released its figures of the number of women in higher rungs of corporate around the world, as a part of their research for ‘Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective', and found the global average of women board of directors is nearly 12 percent. But both China and India are lagging far behind, at 8.5 and 7.7 percent respectively.

With Japan at 2.4 per cent, Russia at 5.7 per cent, Republic of Korea with its 1.7 per cent female members and Indonesia with its 3.7, Asia thus constitutes the bleakest scenario.

The findings of this study have been established upon examining over 6000 companies across 40 countries. It further derived that only 4 percent of the boards have women at their very helm.

Leading the charge is the European batch of countries, exhibiting global highs 36.7 per cent in Norway, followed by France 29.9 per cent, Sweden 24.4 per cent, Italy 22.3 per cent, Finland 22.1 per cent and Germany at 18.3 percent.

The United States are far behind from the European stats, but still close to the global average at 12.2 percent.

When it comes to India, it is undergoing a whirlwind of policy changes to incorporate women at all positions, at company as well as regulatory levels. While start-up spaces strive to attain gender equality at lower rungs, like Ittisa- having sprung up to specifically augment women professionals, mid-size and larger firms are also adopting inclusive techniques.

The recent SEBI deadline set for all companies listed on the NSE to have at least one woman director was followed by a majority of the companies.

"Many Indian companies have started to introduce women directors to their boards. Currently 8 per cent of board seats are held by women and 3 per cent of boards chairs are women," read the report.

"However, a sizeable proportion of the new appointments to date have come from the promoter group (a founding or controlling owner, often a family) or from within the family, or in executive positions, instead of non-executive or independent director candidates," the report said, pointing out loopholes in the ruling.

Image Credits: CNBC.com