A woman's place is in the boardroom

Women are growing their representation faster in Indian boardrooms than in corner suites, broadly in line with the relative time and effort that goes into directorial and managerial roles. Although India ranks low on both parameters by international comparison, placing women on company boards is easier to push through by fiat than placing them in senior management positions. The gap in the middle order of women executives leads to a thinning out at the top, and companies need to be more proactive to prevent this. In contrast, directors can move in laterally, avoiding the trade-off between professional and family responsibilities women face as they work their way up the corporate ladder. It also helps that business in India is driven by families, which makes it easier for women family members to find a place in boardrooms.

The corporate benefits of gender diversity, though, are derived when women’s representation improves at all levels. Despite its faster growth, women’s boardroom representation still trails that in senior management, and it is in the interests of corporate governance that the female managerial pool is widened to feed the needs of company boards. At the end of the day, directors’ quality is related to the quality of managers a company produces. Improved choice among candidates for women directors would require a broader dissemination of managerial skills across the corporate sector.

The rule on women’s board representation should have knock-on effects on managerial gender parity. Yet, this is a relatively weak force. HR policies to encourage women to find a better work-family balance and to sensitise male colleagues remain the predominant managerial intervention. To the extent that boardroom representation affects HR strategy, the top-down approach can considerably improve outcomes. Since the approach is also bottoms up, with affirmative action in college and entry-level corporate hiring, India Inc could attain acceptable levels of gender parity if it pays more attention to its middle managers.