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The Female Future programme to redress the gender imbalance in Norway’s boardrooms and senior executive positions has celebrated its tenth anniversary. It was set up in 2003 by the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise in response to the Norwegian government’s introduction of gender quotas for the boards of publicly listed companies, stipulating that at least 40% of all board members should be women. This was later extended to privately owned limited companies.
In Norway, women make up roughly half of labour market participants. Although they generally have a higher level of educational attainment than men, they often find themselves in different segments of the labour market. This is often most clearly marked by a predominance of one gender or the other in different sectors and men’s dominance of leadership positions in the private sector.
A report, The gender-segregated labour market 1990–2010: Continuity or change? (in Norwegian, 3.3 MB PDF), published by the Norwegian Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF), says the proportion of women in public sector jobs has increased considerably over the last two decades, while their participation in private sector employment has decreased slightly during the same period. Men have gravitated towards higher-paying private-sector jobs while also disproportionately occupying higher leadership positions.
To address these issues, in 2003 the Norwegian government introduced a quota for board membership in publicly listed companies, stipulating that at least 40% of all board members must be women (NO0306106F). In 2006, this policy was extended to include privately owned limited companies. This covered most larger private sector companies or corporate groups since operating as a limited company is a requirement for being listed on the stock exchange. The policy was highly successful since 78% of affected companies had met the quota within two years (NO0801029I).
The dominant Norwegian employers’ organisation, the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), launched the ‘Female Future’ programme in 2003 in response to the government initiative, with the aim of actively recruiting more women into boardroom and senior executive positions. The initiative has now celebrated its tenth anniversary, having become integral to the reduction of gender imbalance at the top level of Norwegian enterprise.
The programme was first introduced because the government said it would intervene if employer organisations did not voluntarily take steps to equalise gender ratios in boardrooms.
The NHO has since said it wishes to maintain the programme, describing women as an ‘important resource’ in strengthening enterprises.
The programme takes place over 13 days each year, focusing on leadership development, boardroom competence, rhetoric and networking. Participants are nominated by various NHO member enterprises, each of whom can nominate two persons. One of the major obstacles that faces women reaching management-level positions is male leaders’ unfamiliarity with women in their professional networks. A significant part of the programme addresses this by helping participants to increase their visibility in their own enterprises. The annual ‘Arena Female Future’ conference builds on this, focusing heavily on networking. Previous conferences have also focused on themes such as ‘visible leadership’.
The initiative has largely been seen as a success. NHO figures show that 1,350 women, representing over 700 NHO members’ enterprises, have completed the programme. In its report Employers’ organisations taking the lead on gender equality (373 KB PDF), the International Labour Organization (ILO) has referred to Female Future as a case study that can ‘provide impetus for reflection and inspiration for others to follow’ for the creation of a more equal gender balance.
According to the recent ‘Evaluation of the NHO Female Future programme’, the programme is a successful concept that has positively contributed to increasing the share of women in leadership positions and in boardrooms. The report concludes that the focus on active change positions women as valuable ‘resources’ to firms, thereby deconstructing stigmas and attitudes that block their access to certain positions. To summarise, the report’s main findings were that following or during the programme:
While the programme was not said to be exclusively responsible for the career progression of its participants, it was confirmed that it had, more importantly, developed leadership skills and increased participants’ motivation for and interest in leadership positions.
The Female Future programme is beneficial for employers, who have greater diversity and competency in their boardrooms, and for society as a whole, enabling more equal career progression to senior executive and boardroom positions. However, given that there are still high levels of gender segregation in the labour market, large strides have still to be made to ensure a balanced labour market. With all social partners committed to increasing the number of women in labour market positions where they have traditionally been underrepresented, it shows that there is a mutually understood consensus about the importance of the issues at hand.
Magnus Mühlbradt, Fafo