LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--International Women’s Day is this Sunday and an annual Grant Thornton survey released today finds weak growth for women in corporate leadership, as only 22% of senior business roles are held by women, down from 24% last year. The proportion of women reaching the top tier of business has shown little progress over the past decade, leading to renewed calls for quotas, one of 12 recommendations set out in the Grant Thornton report released today - Women in business: the path to leadership.
Eastern European countries are strongest for senior female business leaders, including seven of the top ten, with Russia at number one. 40% of senior business roles in Russia are occupied by women, the highest in the world, and almost double the global average. The next five countries on the list are all near neighbours: Georgia (38%), Poland (37%), Latvia (36%), Estonia (35%) and Lithuania (33%).
Japan remains at the bottom of the list with just 8% of senior roles held by women, followed by Germany (14%) and India (15%). There have been pockets of improvement with 26% of senior roles in the EU now occupied by women – an all-time high. This has been driven by France (33%), Sweden (28%) and Greece (27%). At the same time though the number in Latin America has fallen to 18% - an all-time low.
Grant Thornton’s research also reveals increasing support among business leaders for the introduction of quotas. Globally, almost half (47%) of both male and female senior managers now support quotas to get women on the boards of large listed companies, up from 37% in 2013.
The full report, 'Women in business: the path to leadership', which presents complete survey findings and outlines 12 recommendations for society, government, business and women on how to facilitate female career paths is available at GrantThornton.global.