Posted on 01/09/2006 5:39:26 PM PST by farlander
Norway Sets 40% Female Quota for Boardrooms
Companies insist too few qualified women are available to fill posts. Blazing a trail for women's rights, egalitarian Norway is about to become the first country in the world to insist on female quotas for company boardrooms.
By Guardian Newspapers, 7/31/2002
Blazing a trail for women's rights, egalitarian Norway is about to become the first country in the world to insist on female quotas for company boardrooms.
In a decree that has angered employer organisations and meritocratic-minded businesswomen, the government has ordered firms to ensure that at least 40% of their board members are women.
State-owned firms have just 12 months to comply; the country's 650 public companies have three years. If they fail to meet the deadlines the government has said it will introduce legislation to enforce the quotas.
Although Norway prides itself on being one of the world's most egalitarian societies, women make up a mere 7% of the boardroom elite (the European average is about 2%) and calls from successive governments to improve the situation have come to nothing.
"The minister has given firms an ultimatum," Martin Bernsen, a spokesman for Laila Davoy, the minister for children and family affairs, said yesterday. "If they don't succeed [in hitting the quota] the law will be changed.
"Here in Norway we have what we call an old boys' network. The typical board member is male, over 55 years of age and has a background in law and economics. They collect people from their own network and that has to change. The minister is very angry about the current situation."
Many companies claim that they will not be able to find enough suitably qualified women to fill 40% of boardroom posts but Mr Bernsen says government research has shown otherwise. "We have proven that there are lots of educated, highly qualified women out there with the right experience. But firms have to go and look for them."
The number of women in higher education has over taken men, he added, with 60% of university places now occupied by females.
The figure of 40% was not plucked out of thin air. Informal gender quotas have existed in Norway since 1981 when Gro Harlem Brundtland, the country's first female prime minister, took power, and around 40% of government posts have been held by women ever since.
Trade unions, who have lobbied for female quotas for the past 20 years, said they were delighted with the new decree.
Mie Opdordsmoen of LO, Norway's biggest union, said: "Companies need to be forced to hire more women or else they won't do it and if things were left as they are today it would be a hundred years before we have women making up 40% of company boards.
"Men recruit men. We all recruit people who are like ourselves, and men are in power."
Ms Opdordsmoen conceded that Norway's track record on gender equality was impressive but insisted more needed to be done. "We live in a fantasy land where we are practically the world champion of equal rights but that's dangerous," she warned. "Young women go into the workplace and realise that it's not true. They've been told they have equal rights but they don't."
However, the edict has infuriated the country's employers' federation, which says it may make Norway uncompetitive. It also fears that foreign firms may be discouraged from setting up operations in Norway.
Sigrun Vageng, of the federation's equality department, agreed too few women were reaching boardroom level but said firms would remedy the situation if left to their own devices, adding: "We don't think the solution is having a new law. It should be up to shareholders to decide whether or not women are appointed to boardroom positions."
Female quota can be halted
Regulations demanding that at least 40 percent of a Norwegian company's board members must be women may be stopped by European authorities.
The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) watchdog group ESA (EFTA Surveillance Authority) is now starting a formal investigation of the Norwegian regulations, newspaper Nationen reports.
Norwegian authorities have threatened firms with fines if they do not meet the 40 percent women mark in their corporate boards.
"We have not decided if the law is in order or not but we have asked for more information in order to investigate if the law is in accord with EEA (European Economic Area) legislation," Hallgrimur Asgeirsson, director at ESA's Internal Market Affairs Directorate, told the newspaper.
ESA will check if the Norwegian regulations conflict with the European Union directive forbidding positive discrimination.
"A possible outcome of an interim investigation, at least theoretically, is that the Norwegian law can be stopped. One can imagine that, in theory, the Norwegian rules conflict with EU equality regulations," law professor Hans Petter Graver told Nationen.
Sorry, I thought they said company bedrooms.
Why settle at only 40%? If quotas are allowed and Norway wants to be the perfect "egalitarian" society then everything should be divided 50-50 (or 51-49 or whatever the sex balance might be in the population). Heck, why stop at boardroom slots??? That's small potatoes compared to socialist control of every aspect of economic life.... Everyone should be required to fork over 100% of their earnings to the state for the nanny-state to distribute with perfect "equity" as it sees fit..... don't stop with mere grubby dollars and cents issues, Norway should require that everyone have sex just as often as physically possible, with everyone in sight on some perfectly random "equitable" basis, so that no one ever feels neglected or disadvantaged or slighted by the free choices made by individuals. That may seem like a far-fetched example, but it's not: the Euro-twit-socialists want to abolish free choice (except for women to murder their babies) and use the government to force everyone to live by socialist weenie dictates.
Have the Norwegians yet met a forty percent workforce in garbarge collecting?
In Norway crack is everywhere.
OK, exactly what is "positive" discrimination, I wonder.
P.S. Welcome to America, and congratulations on your citizenship.
Working Title: Take this Directorship and Shove It.
You just gotta know what the average person is saying to themselves....
"Great, I'm busting my behind to get ahead; and the qualifications I'm missing aren't based upon education, experience or accomplishments, but the fact that I don't have a rack."
Actually, this is Norway. They probably don't say much to themselves other than "where's my next welfare check" and "tax the business more".
You just made the minister even more angry.
Norway: Sell short.
Actually Norway should make it the law that the male to female population should be in the ratio of 1 male to every 10 females...... Imagine having so many Scandanavian blondes to yourself!
Quotas, quotas everywhere - what a wonderful way to get less-than quality workers (or college students, etc.).
If folks REALLY are concerned with "fairness" (despite what the liberals of this world might insist on telling us they support), then just hiring folks based on their actual skills and qualifications is what's needed.
If I were the one doing the hiring, I would want the MOST QUALIFIED, BEST PERSON for the job - that's what is in my best interest.
Duh!
Ok, coming from a woman:
1st, as a single mom, if I had a choice to stay home, I would.
2nd, as a bright woman, the only boardroom I would really want to be involved in would be for my own company.
Europe is like the titanic, and European leaders have made it their job to rearrange the deck chairs since 1991.
They need more 15-year-old board members with no background in anything.
Man they are dumber than dog crap over there. Seriously. Nothing against women at all. But dang, dumb.
"You can always tell a Norwegian, but you can't tell him much!"
And I'm saying to myself: Gotta remember to short the stock of as many Norwegian-based companies as I can, the second this law takes effect!
Cheers!
...oh, and buy stock in their competition.
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