Are quotas the way to get women to the top?

This article is published in collaboration with The Thomson Reuters Foundation trust.org.

As a young, ambitious British lawyer, Cherie Blair was firmly against imposing quotas to help advance women’s careers but 30 years later she is happy to admit she was wrong.

Blair, a leading barrister and women’s rights campaigner, said a drive unveiled on Thursday to get Britain’s top companies to fill a third of their boardrooms with women by 2020 is a step in the right direction but quotas would accelerate the progress.

The FTSE 100 companies have met a voluntary target of 25 percent women board members, according to a report released on Thursday, but they are now urged to reach 33 percent.

The report did not recommend quotas.

Research shows the 28 countries in the European Union are undecided or against gender quotas, which remain unpopular in the United States where companies lag their European peers in terms of female representation.

But Blair, 61, who runs an international law firm as well as a women’s charity, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, said more needs to be done to improve female representation at top corporate levels.

She said in the 1980s she would have opposed quotas, siding with critics who argue that mandatory targets lead to token hires and could undermine those who made in on their own merits but said progress has been far too slow.

“I would have said I want to make it all on my own merit but with age has come wisdom and disappointment,” Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

“Maybe I thought at the time that we could get there without quotas. But quotas are a necessary evil,” she said.

She described quotas as a “temporary readjustment to what is clearly a structural issue in the market place, in this case the lack of women making it to the top.”

Although figures show women make up about 26 percent of FTSE 100 boards, up from 12.5 percent in 2010, and no boards remain all-male, women make up just 9.6 percent of executive roles and only five women are chief executives.

Blair said it has been proven that quotas worked.

Corporate board gender quotas were first introduced in 2003 in Norway, which mandated that 40 percent of board directors be female. By 2008 the target was reached.

But while women hold powerful positions in Norwegian politics, labour movements and business trade association, critics will point out that none of Norway’s largest companies has a female chief executive.

Companies that followed Norway with legislated quotas for companies include Spain, France, Iceland, Belgium and Italy.

Blair, a mother of four, said it was not enough in Britain to say progress has addressed the problem.

“It would be a near revolution if we actually had women with equal access to posts, not just non-executive directors but also as actual executive directors,” she said.

“It would be a revolution if women actually did get paid the same pay as men. We are making progress, absolutely … but we are, by no means, at the end of this journey.”

Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Belinda Goldsmith is responsible for Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global news services covering humanitarian issues, climate change, women’s rights, corruption and good governance.

Image: An office worker is reflected on the roof of a building. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz.