The Hindu : International : Getting their due

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 02, 2004

International

International

Getting their due

OSLO, MAY 1. How's this for woman power?

In Norway, a law, forcing companies to reserve at least 40 per cent of their boardroom seats for women has been passed. The country's firms are scrambling to recruit women executives as directors, and the new rule is already causing friction at the top of Statoil, Norway's biggest company, with government ministers calling for the chairman or chief executive's role at the oil group to go to a woman.

Even in the famously egalitarian Nordic country there have been protests from some business leaders. But Oslo is standing firm: if companies fail to recruit enough women by July next year, they will face legal action and fines.

Norway has not been a businesswoman's nirvana — just 10 per cent of company directors are women. That's a recruitment rate far below America's, and quotas are seen in Oslo as the only way to tackle male dominance in the boardroom. - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004.

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International

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