Women occupy less than 14% of boardroom seats in Singapore: report

About 6% of board chair positions are assumed by women.

Ladies hold 13.7% of Singapore’s board seats in 2018, higher than the Asia average of 9.3% but trailing behind the 16.9% global average, according to a Deloitte report.

Amongst board chairs positions, 5.8% in Singapore are occupied by women, compared to 4.2% across Asia and 5.3% globally.

The average tenure of women as board members and chairs are 5.0 and 6.7 years respectively, whilst the average age of women as board members is 57.5 years, compared to 61.5 years for board chairs.

Also read: Women now take up one-third of Singapore senior leadership teams: study

Deloitte noted that the Code of Corporate Governance as updated in 2018 required company boards to be diverse in terms of skills and experience, including gender and age.

Although trailing behind globally, the percentage of women in board seats and board chair positions in Asia rose 1.5% and 1.6% respectively since 2016.

However, the average tenure of women as board members in Asia is 5.6 years, just above the global average of 5.5 years. Women holding board chairs in Asia stay an average of 8.0 years, compared to 5.4 years globally.

The average age of women serving as board members and chairs in Asia are 57.0 and 57.1 respectively, on par with the global average of 57.0 years for board members and below the global average of 59.4 years for board chairs.

Globally, the percentage of women holding board seats rose 1.9%. “If the global trend continues at its current rate of an approximately 1 percent increase of women on boards per year, we will be waiting more than 30 years to achieve global gender parity at the board level,” says Deloitte global board chair Sharon Thorne said.