Global Policy Forum

By Lizette Alvarez

Norway, a country long devoted to women's rights in politics and pay, is now setting its sights on reconfiguring the nation's powerful, male-dominated corporate boardrooms.

Despite full-throated opposition from business groups, Parliament is expected to pass legislation soon that would force the country's largest publicly traded companies to increase the share of women on their boards. An estimated 600 companies would be affected. They would be required to increase the number of women on their corporate boards to 40 percent by July 2005, with penalties applying in 2007. At the beginning of this year, 8.4 percent of members on these companies' boards were women.

Business groups say that such a quota would be unrealistic and counterproductive. Under the proposal, if companies failed to meet the quota by 2007, they would risk losing their board certifications, which would affect their ability to do business.

"This is so much about power — the power of having the possibility to go into boardrooms," said Laila Daavoey, a Christian Democrat who is the minister of children and family affairs and who introduced the bill.

While Norway is taking the boldest step toward leveling the playing field for women, the issue is increasingly drawing attention from the rest of Europe, which is now grappling with ways to advance the idea of sexual equality in society as a whole. Anna Diamantopoulou, the European commissioner for employment and social affairs, created a firestorm in late June, when news broke that she was drafting a law to ban sexual discrimination in advertising, editorial content, tax policy, education, pension calculations and insurance costs. Her proposal is now likely to be toned down before it is approved.

Sweden, which has vigorously pursued women's rights, is following Norway's example. Vice Prime Minister Margareta Winberg announced in November that the government would take legal action unless the number of women on the boards of publicly listed companies increased from 8 percent to 25 percent by 2004. "At today's speed it will take up to 150 years until half of the Swedish boards' seats are held by women," she said then. In the United States, women held 12.4 percent of all board seats in Fortune 1,000 companies in 2001, the latest figures available.

Despite the opposition from business here, many experts and politicians say it is just another step along the continuum toward equality in Norway. "It's not that dramatic," Ms. Daavoey said. Norway passed an Equal Status Act in 1979, requiring that 40 percent of the members on local and state government boards and committees be women. Two years later, Gro Harlem Brundtland became the first woman to serve as Norway's prime minister, and her government adopted a plan to promote equal status. By 1986, women made up 44 percent of cabinet posts, a rate that has remained relatively steady. About 80 percent of Norwegian women work, at least part-time.

Ms. Daavoey said that Norway's largest companies have talked for years about increasing the number of women on their boards but that the rate has scarcely budged. The government has run out of patience, she said. The boards, which average six members, are particularly insular and clubby, mostly because Norway's wealth is relatively new and concentrated in the hands of a small number of individuals, she added. Most men who serve on these boards serve on several, and one man in particular sits on 80 of them, she said.

Parliament is expected to approve the legislation, which was co-sponsored by the minister of trade and industry, a Conservative, after the summer break. "They are not using the competence of women in society," Ms. Daavoey said. "It's about equality and democracy. The only way for them to do it in Norway now is if they have to do it. What did they do in the past eight years? Nothing." "There will not be equality," she added, repeating one of her favorite lines, "until you have incompetent women in the boardroom."

Janice Swaby, a public affairs analyst for Catalyst, a nonprofit American organization that works to advance women in business, called Norway's proposal "absolutely groundbreaking."

Still, even in strikingly egalitarian Norway — where conspicuous displays of wealth are rare and women outnumber men among university students — the legislation has prompted a bitter outcry from business groups and a wide-ranging debate about how far the quest for sexual equality should extend. "Of course, women have the same sort of knowledge and are qualified," said Trygve Hegnar, a tycoon who leads the Hegnar Media Group and is editor in chief of its financial daily, Kapital. "The point is you have shareholders and they have the right to appoint who they want." "If I spend $10 million on a company, I should have the right to elect the people I trust," he said. "To take the right away is not right."

Finn Bergesen Jr., leader of the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry, the largest business trade group in the nation, said most businesses support diversifying their boardrooms but believe the legislation is too radical. "Norway will not be as attractive to investors if we have special laws that are different than laws in other countries," Mr. Bergesen said. "This political involvement in business — foreign investors will not like it. Norwegian investors do not like it."

Companies will add more women to the boardroom on their own, through market pressure and natural evolution, he contended. But right now, he said, there are not enough qualified women to fill the jobs. He said his trade group was trying to improve the process by creating a Web site and a database to help companies find potential members. The opponents of the measure contend that catapulting unprepared women to the top will backfire by hurting the credibility of the women appointed under these conditions. They also fear that forcing men off some of the boards to make room for women will lead to conflict and bitterness.

Stein Erik Hagen, one of Norway's biggest investors and a former supermarket chain mogul, said women brought a fresh perspective to boardrooms, so their presence was important. But he contended that often they did not vie for these top jobs because they preferred to spend more time at home with their children.

Only one woman serves on the board of his holding company, Canica, a family business — his daughter. Mr. Hagen, who is a shareholder in many companies and sits on two boards, would have a second woman on his board — but his other daughter recently moved to London. "This will take time," he said, adding that many women are now in middle-management positions. "The culture was that the female stayed home until 20 to 25 years ago. I'm in favor of females on boards, but 40 percent by 2005 is too early."

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