Women hold 17.1% of the board seats in India, finds Deloitte ‘Women in the boardroom report”. This number increased by 9.4% from the 2014 edition − the year when the Companies Act, 2013 mandated having one woman member on every board. Moreover, only 3.6% of the board chairs are women, down by 0.9% since 2018.

Globally, 19.7% of the board seats are held by women, an increase of 2.8% since 2018 compared with 1.9% over 2016−2018. At this pace, the world could expect to reach near-parity only in 2045. Austria, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and the US saw the most notable increases.

Although India saw a decline in board chairs held by women in 2021, it witnessed an increase in the number of women taking up CEO roles − 4.7% female CEOs against 3.4% reported in 2018.

Disproportionate progress in leadership positions

The study revealed a positive correlation between appointing a female CEO and the diversity on the board. Globally, companies with women CEOs have significantly more women on their boards than those run by men − 33.5% vs. 19.4 %, respectively. The statistics are similar for companies with female chairs (30.8% women on boards vs. 19.4%, respectively). The inverse is true as well − gender-diverse boards are more likely to appoint a female CEO and board chair.

“While the Indian regulators have set up a holistic framework to encourage the representation of women in key positions at corporates, the numbers suggest a significant gap between the ideated measures and ground realities. It is time that gender diversity and gender parity get more focused attention from Indian corporations”, says Atul Dhawan, Chairperson, Deloitte India.

Fewer women are serving on more boards. Deloitte Global’s stretch factor metric examines how many board seats an individual holds in a particular market. The higher the stretch factor, the greater the number of board seats the same director occupies in each market. In 2021, the stretch factor for women increased slightly from the 2018 figure of 1.22 to 1.30 in India. It indicates that compared with men, a smaller group of women are taking on many more board seats. Men, by comparison, have a stretch factor of 1.20.

The report includes updates from 72 countries on representation of women in the boardroom, deciphering the political, social, and legislative trends behind these numbers.