More Women Serving on Boards, Report Says

An increasing number of the 500 largest U.S. companies have appointed women as board directors over the last nine years, a report released Tuesday said, but the progress of change has slowed to a near-glacial pace.

Fortune 500 companies with female board members have risen 25.8% since Catalyst, a nonprofit research group, ran its first census on the subject in 1993.

But from 1997 to the present, companies with female board members rose by only 3.6%, compared with a 21.4% jump between 1993 and 1997, the report showed.

Women held 12.4% of the more than 5,900 board seats at Fortune 500 companies by this year’s March 31 cutoff date, the survey showed, up modestly from 11.7% last year.

Still, the number of Fortune 500 companies that have female directors rose by only four in 2001, to 434.

If the survey’s overall rate of increase holds, Catalyst said one quarter of all corporate board seats in the Fortune 500 would be held by women in 2027.

Katherine Tobin, senior director of research at Catalyst, said she “can’t think of a reason why that can’t be the case,” especially as the pool of women with expertise and experience deepens.

Although women made up 25% or more of the boards at 30 Fortune 500 companies this year, Tobin said it was crucial for these companies to continue setting the bar higher.

Still, fewer than 10% of all Fortune 500 companies have three or more female board directors, as their total number slid to 48 from 53 in 2000, the report said.