A new study has found that men still dominate corporate boards globally, while women in companies still struggle to achieve equal representation in boardrooms.

Sandra Burmeister, Amrop Landelahni CEO, noted how “the number of female directors on corporate boards has grown slowly and unevenly over the past decade”.

She pointed out how, even though there was a global trend reflecting an increased visibility of women sitting on boards, “women have yet to attain a representative share of board leadership or senior executive roles”.

Business Women Association’s latest Leadership Census report has indicated that the percentage of women on boards of listed companies in South Africa, the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe had increased by an average of 13,8 percent over a 11-year period (2004-2015).

“South Africa has progressed better than most countries, largely because its legislative framework addressed some structural issues and influenced corporates to be more gender and equity sensitive, but there is still much work to do,” said Burmeister.

According to the report, in South Africa the percentage of women on the boards of JSE-listed companies had trebled from 7.1% in 2004 to 21.9% in 2015.

This three-fold surge outdid the UK which showed an increase from 9.7% in 2004 and has just reached its 2015 target of 25% while European boards on average showed an increase in female directorships from 8.0% to 20.3% over the same period. Some countries were implementing 30% quotas.

“The UK made a focused effort to increase women on boards against a voluntary target and under the threat of European Union quotas,” said Burmeister. “However, it is a concern that a target of between 25% and 33% of female directors is regarded as the norm, even though women make up around half of the workforce.

“Moreover, women have yet to attain a representative share of board leadership or senior executive roles. In SA, only 11.6% of chairpersons and CEOs on JSE-listed companies are women.

“Another concern is that the percentage of executive directorships at 6.9% is far below that of non-executive directorships at 15%. This reflects a global trend, and smacks of tokenism.”

Quoting a McKinsey report, she said research indicated that “men are twice as likely as women to reach middle management, and once they have won a seat on the executive committee, they are five times as likely as women to become CEO”.

She said this issue needed to be addressed through sustainable solutions that would enable companies to “plug the leaks in the promotion pipeline”.

According to the census, during the same 11-year period “the number of women with one board position has decreased from 81.8% to 51.2%”.

It found that the number of women with two directorships stood at 34.8%, while 70 women (14%) held three or more board seats.”

This suggested that the available talent “is becoming even more thinly spread.”

To bridge the gap between women and men in the boardroom, Burmeister said corporates needed to start looking at the benefits of “gender diverse boards”.

Gender diverse boards would achieve better financial results, be more sustainable, have a clear understanding that they needed to develop the next generation of female leaders in order to bring them into senior management roles, and would encourage women to thrive in the workplace.