OSLO: The share of women on Norwegian company boards is higher than anywhere else in the world, the government said yesterday, but still falls short of lawmakers’ goal of near-equality.

Women have achieved gender equality in many areas of Norwegian society, but by and large they have remained locked out of the corporate boardroom. Companies are now racing against the clock to appoint more women at the risk of being shut down if they don’t.

Parliament has asked companies to voluntarily appoint at least 40% women to their boards by July 1, or else a legal quota will enter into force. A company violating the law risks, in the most extreme cases, being dismantled.

Since parliament announced its plans three years ago, the number of women board members in private-sector companies has tripled to 22.5%, Trade and Industry Minister Boerge Brende said yesterday.

“Norway now has the highest amount of women on the boards of listed companies,” he said on the sidelines of a gender equality conference.

In neighbouring Sweden, the corresponding figure is around 18%, in Denmark 8.9% and in Britain 11%, according to the Norwegian Center for Corporate Diversity.

The threat of sanctions “has inspired especially the big companies that are listed on the stock exchange to have more women on their boards,” Brende said.

But Norway remains far from its goal.

Employers, in particular, are dragging their feet, judging that there is no point in replacing seasoned male board members with women who have no experience, purely for the sake of equality.

But equality “is good for the companies, it’s good for wealth creation,” Brende argued.

If the goal of 40% is not met by July 1, the government has threatened to introduce the legal quota specifically targeting the 550 or so public limited companies - big listed companies with broad ownership.

Some 200,000 smaller companies would not be affected.

State-controlled companies meanwhile have a better record: they already have about 45% women on their boards.

The companies targeted by the legal quota would then have two years to reach the 40% level. After two warnings, failure to comply would in the most extreme cases lead to a company’s dissolution.

Brende voiced reservations about the harsh sanction of dismantling companies which fail to respect the law, drafted by the children and family affairs ministry.

“Personally, I don’t think that dissolving companies is a good idea. I think it’s unrealistic,” he said.

He said he was in favour of “reasonable sanctions” but did not provide any details, and urged companies to boost their number of women board members as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, the children and family affairs ministry argued that the figures presented on Friday were misleading since they cover all companies within the Norwegian employers’ organisation, and not the 550 public limited companies specifically targeted by the legal quota.

The public limited companies remain far from the 40% mark, registering only 15.7% women on their boards.

“Our point of view is that these big companies which have a very broad shareholder base ought to be representative of society,” Arni Hole, in charge of equality issues at the ministry, said.

However, she said she didn’t think that any of Norway’s big companies risked being shut down.

“I don’t think it will come down to dissolution”, she said, predicting that companies would fall into line before that. – AFP