China Leaves UK Behind

Ok if you are reading this and thinking it is about the Olympics then you are forgiven. At the time of writing this, sure enough China have 30 medals to our 10 but that is not what this is about. A recent article in People Management  discusses research by the Credit Suisse Research Institute claiming that companies with at least one woman on the board produce a 16% return on equity, 4 percentage points higher than companies with no female board members.

Now the discussions then ensue about reliability of data, sector specifics and so on. But the statistic which is more thought provoking is shoved down to the bottom of the article. The number of female board members is growing in the UK, up to 16.7 from 12.5% a year ago, but in China it rose from 6.5%  in 2005 to a whopping 50% in 2011. What did they do? Did they just mandate it, are these women truly influential on the boards. Gosh, so many questions. It will be fascinating to see what difference this makes to the Chinese economy. Maybe the medals will be in the board room as well as the sports field in future years.