|
OSLO, March 8 (Xinhua) -- A recent analysis shows that only one of six Norwegian companies has a female chief executive and only one in eight has a female chairperson of the board, online newspaper E24 reported Wednesday.
In conjunction with International Women's Day, data and analysis company Bisnode examined gender distribution among top leaders in all stock-based companies, public limited companies and sole proprietorships in Norway.
According to Norwegian law, there should be at least 40 percent of both genders on the board of public limited companies. The requirements also apply to public corporations, inter-municipal companies, large cooperatives and companies where more than two-thirds is owned by municipality.
However, the results have shown that there are only 16 percent of chief executives and 12.6 percent of the chairpersons that are women.
"Although we have gender quotas for the boards of Norwegian companies, our figures show that there is some way to go before peak positions are divided equally between men and women," said Kari Mette Almskog, director of business development and solution sales in Bisnode.
There is also an unequal distribution of ownership among genders, the report said. Norwegian companies are mainly owned by men with only 16.6 percent of companies have a female as the main owner.
Almskog pointed to the ownership structure of the business sector as a possible explanation for why there are so few women at the top, saying that male owners may preferably employ men again as top managers.
Bisnode found that women leaders deliver on average better profit margins than men. While women deliver 12 percent of profit margin, men's share is 9 percent. Enditem
