Failures of OECD executive diversity revealed

Close to half of the corporations in the member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OCED) and development have no female executives.

That is according to research conducted by the United Nations, which discovered that the 30 countries affiliated with the international body are failing to adequately represent women in the boardrooms of their top companies.

Specifically, the study revealed that women filled 12.6 per cent of director-level positions in US financial corporations, compared to 17 per cent in the European Union and 11 per cent in Canada.

In developing economies these figures were even worse, with female executives making up just 1.8 per cent of Bangladeshi boardrooms.

The OECD said in a release: "A substantial re-ordering of women's place in the economic world is long overdue and is made more urgent in the context of the current financial and economic crisis."

Last month, an international review of executive gender diversity revealed that women are underrepresented in the boardrooms of both Italian and German private sector companies.