Sweden: Female execs loose ground

Sweden is considered one of the countries with the greatest gender equality, with a female employment rate of 79 per cent and one of the highest birth rates in Europe. But research conducted by Andra AP-founden (AP2), Sweden’s second national pension fund, has found that for the first time in ten years the trend for a growing number of women to be appointed to executive and board positions has been broken.

The Fund, that prides its self for being an innovative organisation that pays attention to social responsibility, has launched a campaign to lobby companies which it believes are under representing women within their management and boards

The fund said it was taking the action after it conducted research of its index portfolio and found that the proportion of women on corporate boards among its index companies had dropped from 19.3% to 18.6% while the number of female executives had remained unchanged at 13%.

AP2 said it would “initiate a dialogue” with companies in industry sectors that had the lowest such proportion of women executives in order to find out why. The fund did not say whether it would take subsequent action against the companies.

The move by the Swedish fund bears similarities to a warning issued last year by the Norwegian government that it would legislate against companies that did not have equal numbers of male and female executives.

Find out more

About Sweden’s pension fund: www.ap2.se

About gender issues in Sweden: www.scb.se

About NGOs working with gender issues: www.kvinnojour.com