Women Make Slow Progress Into World's Company Boardrooms - MSCI

Tom Burroughes

16 January 2019

Women have not filled company directorships as fast as a research and market benchmarking organization had hoped, although there are areas of improvement such as in some emerging economies, a new study says.

Research from companies as of October 16, 2018, up only slightly from 17.3 per cent last year. Among MSCI World Index (Developed Market) companies, women held 21.6 per cent of all directorships (up from 20.4 per cent), with women at US companies holding 23.4 per cent of directorships (up from 21.7 per cent). Women held 11.2 per cent of board seats at MSCI Emerging Markets Index companies (up from 10.2 per cent).

More than a fifth of the 2,694 MSCI ACWI Index companies still had all-male boards and nearly all still had majority male boards. Only 11 companies had boards that were majority female (up from seven in 2017), with another 32 divided exactly 50-50 (up from 21).

Female representation at the CEO level remains low across MSCI ACWI Index constituents. However, in the chief financial officer position, there has been strong growth in the number of women, especially in emerging markets. This is notable in China, where the proportion of female CFOs (19.3 per cent) is noticeably greater than the overall MSCI ACWI representation (11.1 per cent).