Norway: company boards and gender diversity

Today's Financial Times newspaper contains an extended report exploring the consequences of greater female representation on company boards in Norway following the introduction of a law designed to promote greater gender diversity. The report notes:

Norway has gone the furthest in pushing female participation in the boardroom but other countries are thinking of following its lead. Sweden proposed a similar law in 2006 but a change in government meant it was scrapped. Nonetheless, says Grace Reksten Skaugen, a Norwegian who is a director at Investor, the Swedish financial group, the mere threat of the law was enough to increase the number of women on Swedish boards. ... In legislative terms, the next most advanced country is Spain. Long perceived as a macho society, Spain introduced an equality law in 2007. It recommends that women have an 'equal representation' to men – defined as 40 per cent to men’s 60 per cent – on boards by 2015. There is no compulsion – unlike in Norway where there was a theoretical threat to close down non-compliant companies – but a suggestion that if a company wants government work it should comply".