While women make up 52% of the adult population in South Africa, they make up only 41% of the working South African population, constitute only 14,7% of all executive managers and only 7,1% of all directors in the country are women.
These are the findings of the South African Women in Corporate Leadership Census 2004, commissioned by the Businesswomen’s Association (BWA) and sponsored by Nedbank.
As a result of collaboration between the BWA and Catalyst, a businesswomen’s organisation in the United States, the South African Women in Corporate Leadership Census 2004 has measured the number of women on boards and in executive management of every company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange, as well as 17 of the largest state-owned enterprises in South Africa.
The census is based on methodology developed by Catalyst, which has for the last few years tracked the trends of women in business in the US, Canada and Australia.
“The census has specifically been timed to coincide with the anniversary of South Africa’s first 10 years of democracy and the 25th anniversary of the BWA’s Businesswoman of the Year Award. Both of these milestones give us good reason to measure and reflect on where South African corporations are, with regard to the promotion of women in their organisations,” says Dr Namane Magau, President of the BWA.
Data outlined in the South African Women in Corporate Leadership Census 2004 shows that women corporate leaders are still in the minority. “While there will always be more people in an overall workforce than in corporate leadership positions, the relative representation of women in executive management and board positions does not correspond meaningfully to the proportion that women form of the overall [working] population of the country,” said Magau.
According to the census, of the 3 125 directorship positions held, only 221 are held by women. Only 11 women hold chairs of boards out of a total of 364 of all such positions and there are only seven woman CEOs/MDs in comparison to 357 men.
Currently, women hold only 7,1% of board directorships — the lowest result of all four countries where the census is conducted (Australia 8,4%, Canada 11,2% and United States 13,6% in 2003). These results are in sharp contrast to the strong representation of women in parliament and in South African owner-managed businesses.
Only 3,2% of chairs of boards in South Africa and 1,9% of CEOs in South Africa are women. Despite these low numbers, South African companies are actually performing relatively well on this metric, since the international average shows that only 1% of all chief executive positions are held by women.
While women are also significantly underrepresented in the executive manager ranks of corporate South Africa, local companies fare better than most other countries on this measurement.
Also, the perception that only a few, powerful women hold a majority of all the directorships held by women is untrue. Power is actually spread far more evenly among those women who do hold directorships. At the date of the census, a total of 170 women directors, holding 221 directorships between them, were recorded. It was found that the majority of women (81,8%) hold only one directorship and only three women hold six directorships each.
The census highlighted the following ten South African companies that have performed particularly well (25% or more of director positions are held by women and 25% or more of executive manager positions are held by women): Air Traffic and Navigation Services, Enviroserv Holdings Limited, Maxtec Limited, MTN Group Limited, South African Broadcasting Corporation, South African Post Office, Spescom Limited, Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, Transnet and Venter Leisure & Commercial Trailers Limited. Their performance is in sharp contrast to the fact that almost 60% (59,9%) of all companies have no women directors at all. – I-Net Bridge