The percentage of women on boards has grown in 2021, making the most considerable one-year growth in the past decade. However, gender parity has still not been reached, a new report finds.
50/50 Women on Boards released its annual report Oct. 5 that analyzes the number of women on corporate boards of Russell 3000 Index companies. It showed that while progress has been made, it is slow, with women holding 25 percent of board positions in healthcare.
Five other important findings from the report:
1. The healthcare industry has the most companies with no women on boards.
2. Women gained 771 board seats this year, nearly two-thirds of which were added seats not requiring men to give up their positions to make space.
3. Only 7 percent of companies have gender balanced boards with 50-50 distribution of men and women on the board.
4. Only 4.5 percent of board directors are women of color and 12 percent of board directors are people of color. There is a lack of data for this parameter, though, with only 17 percent of directors self-reporting their race.
5. The top 100 companies on the Russell 3000 have 32.1 percent women on their boards.