Why there isn’t an alternative to female quotas

For Italian women, reaching top positions seems to be an impossible mission. The debate anticipating the approval by the Italian Parliament of the gender quota law (establishing that companies’ Boards of Directors have to include one-fifth women in 2012 and one-third within 2015) has much more in common with other Italian debates such as the lack of data and the consequent ideological nature of the discussion. This is why the analysis of the results collected by a recent study carried out by the Deloitte Global Centre can explain the importance of a law promoting women’s presence in Italian Boards.
In 2011, the presence of women in Italian Boards is lower than 3.7%, against a European average of 12%. Only Portugal registers worse data. On an international level, the Italian situation is similar to that of Morocco, Chile and South Korea. Academic literature defines this problem as “Glass ceiling”, a sort of invisible and insurmountable barrier that does not let women reach top positions.
Another important point underlined by the study is that, where gender quota laws are applied, higher rates of women’s participation have been registered. Norway, for instance, introduced female quotas in 2005, with specific characteristics. The Norwegian law, indeed, precisely defines the number of representatives of both genders to be included in Boards of Directors and states the in Boards with more than 9 members the disparity between the presence of women and men cannot go beyond 40%. Sanctions are imposed on those who do not respect female quotas and may even lead to the winding-up of the company. Nowadays, in Norway in the Boards of Directors of Ltds there are 31.9% women.
According to the Deloitte’s study, Spain introduced female quotas in 2007 and, two years later, the percentage of women holding top positions reached 9.2%. Measures similar to the Italian ones have been adopted in Belgium, Canada (which seems to be seeking to increase quotas to 50%), France and Netherlands, whose situation is less “dramatic” that that of our country.
According to what many argue, the introduction of female quotas does not guarantee meritocracy. It is essential to remind that, in Italy, for years the number of graduated women has been higher than that of graduated men, and women generally have higher marks. Moreover, the attention of the society and market to the process of selection of women will certainly increase the attention and the pressure for more meritocratic selection criteria for men too. In future, other groups of people who in Italy are as weak as women are will benefit of such a change, and especially youths. It is possible that the presence of more women in companies’ Boards will enhance to the participation of more girls reaching age balance as well.