Board gender quotas, while useful for increasing female representation at board level, fail to increase the number of women appointed to the executive suite, research has found.
A study into the impact of board quotas in India – which was the first developing country to require publicly-listed firms to have at least one woman on their boards – found that such a policy can have adverse impacts elsewhere in an organisation.
However, when a woman in a position of authority, such as an executive director, is appointed to the board, the careers of women at lower levels are enhanced to a higher degree, the study by Vlerick Business School in Belgium found. It said this was because these positions usually include responsibility for senior management recruitment, suggesting women may have diversity in mind when making these appointments.
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The study considered data on female appointments from 184 of the largest listed companies in India between 2007-2017. India’s board-level gender quota policy was announced in 2013 and implemented in 2015.
During the period studied, the number of women appointed to boards increased, but executive-level representation declined. Gender balance at lower levels of management also regressed at the companies.
Esha Mendiratta, an assistant professor of international business at Vlerick Business School, suggested that policymakers or companies considering the introduction of quotas should focus on increasing women at all levels of senior management, not just the board.
She said: “Increasingly, poor representation of women in senior management positions has attracted significant attention from policymakers, who have intervened politically by putting in place controversial, mandatory board gender quotas.
“Though there have certainly been positive impacts of doing so, there is still some way to go to see vast improvements in gender board balance in India – and these policies certainly still need some tweaking to ensure little negative spillover effects.”
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Mendiratta pointed out that the findings showed board gender quotas in India were having a different effect to those implemented in developed countries including Norway and Italy, where studies found they did not have any significant impact on female appointments across all levels of senior management.
The European Union recently approved its Women on Boards directive which will require large listed companies to ensure that 40% of non-executive director posts and 33% of senior roles (including directors, NEDs, CEOs and COOs) are held by women. The requirement will take effect on 30 June 2026.
