Qatar: Women fail to break into the boardroom

SOCIAL and cultural factors have impeded female participation in the boardroom of GCC companies, according to a survey.

In Qatar, the number of women on boards was far below the GCC average, said National Investor — which carried out the survey among 3,493 board members occupying 4,254 board seats across 582 listed companies.

It will take a while for women to make headway in economic participation, said National Investor, a privately owned regional investment and merchant banking group.

“Female board representation is very low in the GCC. This was largely expected before we finalised the results of this research,” said the survey.

Of the total board seats, women held only 63 seats, which is a mere 1.5% of the total.

“The small representation of women on regional boards (1.5%) is unsurprising and looks minuscule compared with 13.60% in America and 22% in Norway,” it said.

In Qatar, the proportion was a mere 0.3% (one female holding a board seat out of a total of 322 seats), it said.

Kuwait and Oman have the largest number of women holding board seats. The figure was 2.7% and 2.3% respectively. In Kuwait women held 30 seats out of a total of 1,101. In Oman the number was 21 out of 905.

In Dubai, females were represented in three out of a total of 259, a proportion of 1.2%, while in Bahrain, they had four of the total 402 seats, constituting 1%.

Social and religious factors do explain some inter-regional differences, National Investor said, adding elsewhere, the fiscal environment may favour male inheritance and consequently discourage the economic involvement of women.

The survey said it was unclear at this stage whether the proportion of women directors would change as markets mature.

“Our belief is that some effort is being made to increase female economic participation, and that any material change in the GCC is likely to take time,” National Investor said.

By Santhosh V Perumal, Gulf Times