Abstract
The representation of women in corporate directorships in Denmark has only been improving slowly over the last few years. Despite the slow progress at home and more active policies in neighboring countries and at the EU level, the Danish government has thus far resisted implementing board gender quotas. This chapter reviews the rules, trends and main debates surrounding board gender diversity in Denmark. We describe the main features of the country’s corporate governance system and overview the gender composition of Danish boards and the country’s efforts with regard to women’s representation in the top positions. We suggest that the low incidence of Danish women on boards is due to both the shortage of female candidates, especially women with leadership skills, as well as the persisting preferences of firms for “traditional” types of director characteristics and skills. We argue that further efforts in Denmark need to be directed toward facilitating women’s promotion to leadership positions, and also toward increasing firms’ (owners’) awareness of the benefits of gender-diverse boards.
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Gregorič, A., Hansen, J.L. (2017). Women’s Path to the Boardroom: The Case of Denmark. In: Seierstad, C., Gabaldon, P., Mensi-Klarbach, H. (eds) Gender Diversity in the Boardroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57273-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57273-4_7
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