Two countries within the European Union have no females leading any listed company.
That’s according to new research carried out by Bloomberg, which highlighted which countries on the continent are lacking female leadership at the top.
It named Ireland and Luxembourg as the two countries in the less-than-flattering position, which comes as a reminder that there is still progress to be made for women to have equal opportunities in top jobs.
For Ireland, the retirement of Margaret Sweeney, the chief executive of Irish Residential Properties REIT, resulted in all 31 companies listed on Euronext Dublin being led by men.
Bloomberg also highlighted a broader trend in which, according to a study by the European Institute for Gender Equality, only 8% of CEO positions at the largest listed companies across the EU-28 were occupied by women in 2023.
Best place for female business leaders
According to a recent report by Euronews, Norway is the best country in Europe for female workers with a significant number of female business leaders, a narrow gender pay gap and fair maternity policies.
PR company Reboot Online crunched the numbers from datasets of 32 European countries and found the Scandinavian country snagging the top spot based on data from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGC) and the World Economic Forum.
Norway scored a 7.1 out of 10 in the analysis, trailed by Iceland (6.53), Finland (5.03) and the Netherlands (5.49).
Norway stood out from the crowd with “impressive representation” of females in leadership positions with demonstrative five-year growth, according to the analysis. This includes CEOs, executives, non-executives, presidents and board members of the largest listed companies in 2023.
According to the most up-to-date EIGC research, Norwegian men helmed 56% of senior leadership positions last year – but women occupied 43%. In total, women took out 81 of the top jobs, the EIGE states.
