Corporate Social Responsibility

"As female business and political leaders gathered in this beach resort in Normandy last week for the Women’s Forum Global Meeting, an annual conclave that has been dubbed the Davos of women, the number of suits and ties in a sea of colorful female elegance definitely stood out.

Twenty-three chieftains of industry — 13 of them men — committed to six concrete measures to improve the gender balance in their companies over the next 12 months. The measures included pledges to make the advancement of women a top strategic priority at the chief executive level, to require female candidates in every recruitment pool, and to deliver specific targets for more female representation at all levels of their companies.

The greater presence of men at this year’s forum — the sixth such session since it was first held in 2005 — is emblematic not just of a growing awareness in the business world that looming skills shortages make women a vital pool of talent. It is also indicative of a shift among prominent women toward the idea that men — as sympathetic chief executives, corporate mentors and involved fathers — are crucial to the next stage of women’s advancement."

"The U.K. government may enforce quotas to increase the number of women on the boards of listed companies if a better gender balance cannot be reached through less direct measures, according to the head of the government's inquiry into gender inequality in public companies.

Mervyn Davies, former U.K. Trade Minister and chairman of Standard Chartered PLC, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview Friday that a quota system was a "last resort", but one that would be pursued if progress was not made.

'If it [gender equality on boards] is not going to change over a brief period then we will have to do quotas,' he said. 'The reality is we only have 12% of FTSE 100 board members who are women, and when you go to the FTSE 250 it falls to 7%.'

Davies, who was appointed last month to lead the inquiry, said Norway's experience of using a quota system would be closely examined. Since it was introduced in 2008, Norway's rules have required public companies allocate 40% of board seats to women or face possible closure and delisting from the Oslo Stock Exchange.

His comments develop those made in March by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said that if there was not a dramatic change in the proportion of women on public boards the government would have to consider taking 'serious action.'

Davies said the reasons behind gender inequality in the boardroom were complex, but said there is already a large pool of women who would be ideal to hold board positions.

'Britain is full of female entrepreneurs, but you don't see many of them on the boards of big companies. Why is that?' Davies asked. 'The business case for diversity is clear. The big question is: How do we have a mindset change in Britain?'"

"The recently enacted financial reform legislation tries in numerous ways to change how Wall Street companies and their federal regulators act, but a little-noticed provision aims for something potentially more difficult and controversial — altering how they look.

To promote diversity in the largely white, male world, the new law requires each of the 30 federal financial agencies and departments, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and all 12 Federal Reserve banks, to establish an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

Those offices will work with vaguely defined powers to boost diversity at their agencies and the companies they regulate, and to increase federal contracting opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses. Banks and other financial firms determined to have failed to make "a good-faith effort to include minorities and women in their workforce" could lose their government contracts."

"Women are disappearing from the ranks of finance workers, despite a decrease in sexual discrimination charges and a rash of new corporate programs to attract and retain them. Meanwhile, the number of men in the business has surged.

In the past 10 years, 141,000 women, 2.6% of female workers in finance, disappeared from the industry, while the ranks of men in the industry grew by 389,000, or 9.6%, according to a review of data provided by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The numbers suggest that women bore the brunt of the layoffs in the recent recession and sexism is still a problem in U.S. banks, insurance companies and real estate firms.

Young women, in particular, are becoming a rarity in the country's banks, brokerage houses and insurance companies. Since 2000, the number of women between ages 20 and 35 working in finance has dropped by 315,000, or 16.5%, while the number of men in that age range grew by 93,000, or 7.3%."