Norway’s New Quota: Corporate Board 40% Women Or Else!It’s now a law in Norway that large, publicly-traded companies must have at least 40% women in their corporate boards … or risk dissolution: "A woman comes in, a man goes out. That’s how the quota works; that’s the law," says Kjell Erik Øie, deputy minister of children and equality, in the centre-left "Red-Green" coalition government in Oslo. "Very seldom do men let go of power easily. But when you start using the half of the talent you have previously ignored, then everybody gains." Businesses fought hard against the legislation, but they lost: … even in Norway the quota went ahead only after years of ferocious debate and some resistance. As one male non-executive director who has survived the recent cull of boards put it, "What I and a lot of people don’t understand is why it is seen as good for business to swap seasoned players for lip gloss?" But such scepticism was not as widespread as one might expect. Ansgar Gabrielsen, 52, a Conservative trade and industry minister, and former businessman, is the unlikely champion of the quota. In 2002, in the then centre-coalition government, he publicly proposed a 40% quota on publicly listed boards without consulting cabinet colleagues. The law would be enacted in three years, he announced, only if companies failed to comply. The challenge was huge. Out of the 611 affected companies, 470 had not a single female board member. Gabrielsen’s reasoning at that time set the terms of the debate that followed. The quota was presented less as a gender-equality issue, and more as one driven by economic necessity. He argued that diversity creates wealth. The country could not afford to ignore female talent, he said. Norway has a low unemployment rate (now at 1.5%) and a large number of skilled and professional posts unfilled. "I could not see why, after 30 years of an equal ratio of women and men in universities and having so many women with experience, there were so few of them on boards," he says.
It’s now a law in Norway that large, publicly-traded companies must have at least 40% women in their corporate boards … or risk dissolution:
"A woman comes in, a man goes out. That’s how the quota works; that’s the law," says Kjell Erik Øie, deputy minister of children and equality, in the centre-left "Red-Green" coalition government in Oslo. "Very seldom do men let go of power easily. But when you start using the half of the talent you have previously ignored, then everybody gains."
Businesses fought hard against the legislation, but they lost:
… even in Norway the quota went ahead only after years of ferocious debate and some resistance. As one male non-executive director who has survived the recent cull of boards put it, "What I and a lot of people don’t understand is why it is seen as good for business to swap seasoned players for lip gloss?" But such scepticism was not as widespread as one might expect. Ansgar Gabrielsen, 52, a Conservative trade and industry minister, and former businessman, is the unlikely champion of the quota. In 2002, in the then centre-coalition government, he publicly proposed a 40% quota on publicly listed boards without consulting cabinet colleagues. The law would be enacted in three years, he announced, only if companies failed to comply. The challenge was huge. Out of the 611 affected companies, 470 had not a single female board member. Gabrielsen’s reasoning at that time set the terms of the debate that followed. The quota was presented less as a gender-equality issue, and more as one driven by economic necessity. He argued that diversity creates wealth. The country could not afford to ignore female talent, he said. Norway has a low unemployment rate (now at 1.5%) and a large number of skilled and professional posts unfilled. "I could not see why, after 30 years of an equal ratio of women and men in universities and having so many women with experience, there were so few of them on boards," he says.
… even in Norway the quota went ahead only after years of ferocious debate and some resistance. As one male non-executive director who has survived the recent cull of boards put it, "What I and a lot of people don’t understand is why it is seen as good for business to swap seasoned players for lip gloss?"
But such scepticism was not as widespread as one might expect. Ansgar Gabrielsen, 52, a Conservative trade and industry minister, and former businessman, is the unlikely champion of the quota. In 2002, in the then centre-coalition government, he publicly proposed a 40% quota on publicly listed boards without consulting cabinet colleagues. The law would be enacted in three years, he announced, only if companies failed to comply. The challenge was huge. Out of the 611 affected companies, 470 had not a single female board member.
Gabrielsen’s reasoning at that time set the terms of the debate that followed. The quota was presented less as a gender-equality issue, and more as one driven by economic necessity. He argued that diversity creates wealth. The country could not afford to ignore female talent, he said. Norway has a low unemployment rate (now at 1.5%) and a large number of skilled and professional posts unfilled. "I could not see why, after 30 years of an equal ratio of women and men in universities and having so many women with experience, there were so few of them on boards," he says.
Source.
If "diversity creates wealth", why would profit-oriented firms oppose the legislation? Real socialist "logic" at work here.
Reminds me of last year in health class when I was debating my health teacher on anti-smoking leglislation in resteraunts. She kept saying that if smoking were banned in resteraunts they would actually make more money because of all the people who don't go to reseraunts as often as they'd like to because people area allowed to smoke there. I mentinoed that if there were really that many people the businesses would ban smoking themselves to raise profits. But she didn't seem to understand the logic.
Europe is on it's way to the crapper and in more ways than one.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Free Software Foundation
Political correctness rears its ugly head yet again...
Oh yea, feminism is the new thing!
There's currently an investigation going on in Sweden, that will lead to a proposal of a new constitution (last one was ratified in 1974, we don't quite have the American constitutional tradition over here), and they're seriously considering a feminist perspective to it... uhm.
Yeah, I dont see it going anywhere else. Even the most "rightist" and "freedom loving" parties in sweden are still more left than the democrats. And so many people to the right completely buy into their rethoric. I might have to emigrate to New Hampshire or... New Zeeland or whatever, because I can already just sense all these moronic laws being made right now. I have the feeling that Sweden is going to hell, and if the socialists win the next election, with Mona Sahlin as prime minister, I really, really, might have to consider getting out.
Interesting thing about the proposal in Norway is that it has not lead to more women, or at least not THAT many more, in actual numbers, being employed for these sort of jobs. Instead, companies in Norway find women that have the sort of competence it takes, and hire them... and these women are already employed by various other firms... so these women that have the skills needed are called Golden Cows (I think), simply because they are sitting in, I dont know, 10 or more boards at the same time. And there's a sort of quiet understanding that they are only there on paper.
Like all legislation which drapes itself in the mantle of "equality", "human rights" and so on I wonder if this legislation was not written on more mundane purposes. First purpose is, of course, to increase the "value" of women already doing the job: you can be in more than one board at at a time, no problem. These women would become extremely sought after (and much better paid, of course). Second purpose is to "share the booty" more equally: my personal experience tells me that corporate boards are usually crammed full with former politicians who, for a reason or another, cannot be elected anymore or wish to have a less fatiguing job than continously cajoling electors and robbing taxpayers. Since Scandinavian politics has been crammed full with women for the past thirty-odd years it doesn't take a genius to figure out that more former politicians will find a nice, well paid place to wait for retirement. Third purpose is probably pretty similar to the second and it will allow university personell similar advantages to those given to politicians.
Allow me a personal comment but I have formed a low opinion of many persons (be them women or otherwise) who entered particular positions because of "reserved quotas". And I'll stop there. Again Americans clamoring for "a more equal world through politics" should be sent to Europe to work for a couple of years. They'll be cured of their infatuation soon enough.
One final word: how many Norwegian companies will follow the examples of Sweden's IKEA (which relocated headquarters to the Netherlands) and Tetrapak (which moved to Switzerland)? How many will become easy picking for foreign comapnies after having sapped of their vital strength?
BWF89:She kept saying that if smoking were banned in resteraunts they would actually make more money because of all the people who don't go to reseraunts as often as they'd like to because people area allowed to smoke there. I mentinoed that if there were really that many people the businesses would ban smoking themselves to raise profits. But she didn't seem to understand the logic.
It's this exact same ignorance that's shockingly prevalent among our ruling class (not to mention college economics faculties). E.g. it's no arcanum that if women were in fact as productive as men, or rather if they produced as much, and have been working up to now for a smaller wage, then they would apodictically dominate all industries; and yet oddly enough little facts like this never seem to reach the ears of legislators.
One would think that in a planned economy and in the age of information politicians would have some knowledge of economics (but I guess then we wouldn't have a planned economy any more).
Diminishing Marginal Utility - IT'S THE LAW!
Men don't collude against women, or at least haven't in any capacity for a very long time. Some men may have irrational biases against women, but the opposite is also true. Shareholders of large firms tend to care about one thing and one thing only: making money. If monkeys with funny hats would raise the share price, then they'd vote in monkeys.
If you correct for factors like education and IQ, there is really no difference between the pay of men and women holding the same job in America. While more women attended college than men, men tend to have more technical degrees (such as engineering). Also, most studies show high-IQ men outnumbering high-IQ women. The reasons for this seem to vary depending on the study, but most of the things I've seen indicate the variance of IQ in women is lower (I'm sure raising them playing with Barbie dolls vs. a boy's legos doesn't help). I'm sure its probably similar in Norway.
Personally I think the idea that men discriminated against women is largely overblown. Yes, women were treated like crap, but so were men. Women were provided for but largely treated like property, while men were free but expected to provide for women and die fighting needless wars. Its always sounded like equal-opportunity stupidity to me.
First of all, if I sound like a misogynist to you it is because you're not understanding what I'm saying. I could just as easily say you sound like a "fascist" to me (albeit of the diversicrat type, to borrow an expresson of Byzantine's.)
Secondly, if a group of people have no desire to associate with me, and will not respond to arguments to the contrary, I just leave them be. I do not force them to. You are equating aggression with dissociation. They're not the same, like it or not. No one but the owners of the firm have a say in how it is run, and if they're mindful of their profits, they will pay attention to the opinion of their customers too, or risk losing their patronage, so their clients have a say by extension. A profit-oriented firm will quickly hire the most efficient employees when they are available, but this certainly gives no one the right to force them to do so. Notice in nothing I said did I condone the actions of individuals who fail to treat women according to their merit, if that is indeed what they did.
Thirdly, paragraphs are your friend.
Yeah, I would've jumped in myself, but I stopped three sentences into that wall of text. Perhaps something is wrong with his/her computer and/or web browserIn any case, sexism goes both ways; this is why I can hardly take feminism, while possibly noble, seriously anymore, especially with the after-effects of feminization in public schools. Of course, if public schools weren't more or less lawfully, socially & politically expected to be mandatory, it might not be a problem...
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
Joakim:Yeah, I dont see it going anywhere else. Even the most "rightist" and "freedom loving" parties in sweden are still more left than the democrats. And so many people to the right completely buy into their rethoric. I might have to emigrate to New Hampshire or... New Zeeland or whatever, because I can already just sense all these moronic laws being made right now. I have the feeling that Sweden is going to hell, and if the socialists win the next election, with Mona Sahlin as prime minister, I really, really, might have to consider getting out.
I am basically resigned to Europe self-destructing over the course of my lifetime. There are just so few people speaking out in the manner required against the consensus. It's not so bad for me personally - I've grown up in a wealthy environment and will be able to decide how and where I spend my adulthood - but it's going to be very bad for a lot of people when the whole thing collapses.
http://irishliberty.wordpress.com/
Yeah I have a sense that its gonna get pretty bad, especially with the EU. What strikes me as most fantastic is that most people I talk to don't see the EU becoming a full state, sort of like an European version of USA. They are not even hiding it anymore, and yet people refuse to believe it.
For instance, EU is drafting a constitution. We, in Sweden, pay 10% of our tax money to EU every year. This is equivalent with a 10% federal tax. Difference is, we are not shown it on our tax receipts.
If the EU really was a "free market agreement" which is how the right wing people here sell it, why have a constitution of 1000s of pages? You could summarize free trade on a post card.
Does an individual have a right to be an ignorant jerk? I argue that he does - as long as being a jerk does not involve agression. Does anyone have a right to have a particular job with a particular company? I argue that they do NOT, the only obligation from the company to continue to employ or the employee to continue to be employed would be a mutually agreed contract.
If liberty is the basis for society, then the highly qualified candidate who is passed over for whatever reason has every right to quit the job and found their own enterprise or get a job with a company they like more. In fact they can tell all their friends and coworkers about the situation, and so discourage them from working at the original company. To demand that the State force the original company to hire or promote them is inconsistent with liberty. It also begins/reenforces entitlement and rent-seeking behavior.
Is it in the best interest of a company to seek the most highly qualified individuals at the lowest prices for positions within their business? Absolutely! Gender, ethnicity, creed, nationality - no characteristic should alter a decision about maximizing business performance. Maximizing business performance is what enables the growth of prosperity in society, and delivers benefits to all consumers. Does it damage a business to base their hiring and promotion decisions on "immutable characteristics"? I think it does. However, no one but the business owner has a right to demand and enforce a change in their hiring/promotion practice.
The market will punish inefficient business, and reward efficient business. To initiate government violence destroys liberty.
One hundred trillion Zimbabwe dollar note
You are using the very mindset and some of the types of justifications that have through the ages justified bad behavior.
I apologize for not reading your whole post; paragraphs are your friend. Just wanted to make one small point: "discrimination" isn't illegal in a free society. The market usually punishes discrimination, because the tolerant person will outcompete the discriminator. But aggression is what's illegal, and the only thing that's illegal, in a free society. Forcible discrimination is illegal, and forcible integration is also illegal.
You can call the discriminator a jerk, but if he doesn't initiate aggression against anyone, you can't honestly liken him to the Taliban. As you yourself said, the "brutal Muslim men" in question "beat" women. That's aggression.
--Len.
Inquisitor:Thirdly, paragraphs are your friend.
I just had to say that this sentence made me laugh out loud.
I thought I would point out a psychology article on the subject: Is There Anything Good About Men
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty
That really is an excellent article. I am going to get a female perspective on it, as I am having my wife read it.
Even more totalitarianism in Europe: Put young children on DNA list, urge [British] police
Yeah well, in sweden all children, when born, have their blood taken and stored in a DNA database. In fact, this was how the killer of Anna Lindh was caught, or at least one of the reasons he was convicted.