The number of women at the top of Belgium's largest companies (BEL 20) remains limited, with rights activists stressing the need for proactive laws to improve the gender balance.
In 2011, Belgium was one of the first countries in the world to introduce a 33% legal gender quota on the board of directors (BoD) of the BEL20 listed companies, resulting in a large rise in the number of women on BoDs. But gender diversity at the top of the hierarchy in these businesses remains inadequate, a study published by social enterprise Jump showed.
"Every year, more women than men graduate from higher education. Despite this, they remain underrepresented at the top of Belgian companies, especially on management boards and executive committees," said Marie-Colline Leroy, Secretary of State for Equal Opportunities.
Backsliding
Among the BEL 20 (Belgium's 20 biggest companies in terms of revenue), 40% of board members are women but this had not led to a more proportional representation of women in executive committees (ExCom).
"On the contrary, a declining trend is even observed in recent years. The number of women in ExCom of BEL20 companies in Belgium in the first quarter of 2023 is 16.7%, lower than the European average of 19%," Jump observed. Only five out of 96 women are executive directors.
Nine BEL 20 companies have just one woman on their management committee; four others – VGP, Ageas, AB Inbev and WDP – have not a single woman at the top of the executive scale.
Jump highlighted that just one company (Melexis) has a female Chair of the Board. The only company to have a female CEO is Solvay. Not one company achieves gender balance (at least 40% of each gender) in both the Board of Directors and ExCom.
Stigmatising quotas
There is currently no law requiring companies to have a gender mix on their executive committees. Jump stressed that it believes these figures confirm the need to revise the 2011 law to encourage companies to be proactive when it comes to gender diversity.
"Nobody likes quotas, especially not the people who should benefit from them because it stigmatises them. But the road to equality does not happen automatically: without legal obligation, there is no effect!" said Isabella Lenarduzzi, the founder of JUMP.
The group has called for greater transparency by obliging companies to publish diversity figures and for state aid and public procurement to be halted for companies that fail to meet quotas.
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Leroy confirmed that the research highlights the added value of legally-binding rules, such as quotas, to promote diversity in decision-making bodies. She added that the current situation "highlights the risk of status quo when relying on 'self-regulation'."
She therefore stressed the need to work in cooperation with government to extend the principles of Belgian law.
