Despite being Asia's leading business hub, Hong Kong is seen to be lagging behind its global counterparts like the UK and Australia in gender equality, a study says. Asia News Photo

NGO hits out at 'cultural and institutional barriers' as fewer women get into the boardroom

As the world marked International Women's Day, women in Hong Kong are found to have made little headway in getting up the corporate ladder, with a non-governmental organization (NGO) blasting what it calls "cultural and institutional barriers" for their plight.

Expressing "extremely disappointing" over the situation, Community Business - a non-profit-making organization - revealed on Tuesday that the past year has seen no improvement for women in terms of securing top positions in Hong Kong-listed companies.

The latest survey by Community Business, which campaigns for greater diversity and inclusion in business practices, shows that women have not been making the grade overall, with the top 50 blue chip companies on the Hang Seng Index staying stagnant in terms of female representation at board director level.

As of Jan 2 this year, only 11.1 percent, or 71 director positions, were held by women in these top companies, unchanged from a year ago. The ratio, however, was slightly higher, at 11.8 percent, across all 1,858 enterprises listed in the SAR - edging up from the previous year's 11.3 percent.

On the contrary, the number of all-male boards has gone up from 14 in 2015 to 16 this year. Seven of these companies have had "zero" female directors since 2009, when the annual survey started.

Despite being Asia's leading business hub, Hong Kong is seen to be lagging behind its global counterparts like the UK and Australia, which have 26.1 percent and 21.5 percent female board directors, respectively, the study says.

In the region, only Singapore and Japan have fewer female directors than Hong Kong, while Malaysia and India increased their share of women in the boardroom to 13.4 percent and 12.3 percent respectively. Singapore - the SAR's all-time rival - saw the ratio go up by 1.2 percentage points in the year.

Fern Ngai, chief executive officer of Community Business, described the survey results as "extremely disappointing", indicating "a lack of recognition of female talents and (their) tremendous contributions to the economy".

She said the findings were a clear sign of "cultural and institutional barriers" that prevent women from getting to the top.

"Gender pickup is an issue for many companies," Ngai said, adding that Hong Kong's business community should look beyond their "old boys' network" and cast their net wider to improve gender diversity in the boardroom.

Furthermore, she pointed out that, among the small population of female leaders, some hold multiple directorships. Within the 71 female director roles in Hong Kong, 17 posts were shared by six women, with two of them each holding four chairs. "Companies are failing to create the right environment for women to reach the top," Ngai said.

The five new female board directors in the top 50 blue chip companies this year are with HSBC, Hong Kong Link, China Construction Bank, CLP Group and AIA Group.

emmadai@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 03/09/2016 page9)