Women in the boardroom: Evidence from large UK companies

A considerable amount of attention has recently been given to the lack of equality for women in the economic arena. Women are systematically disadvantaged in many ways in terms of pay for the same job, promotion prospects and access to the most important top jobs in the United Kingdom. In this paper we present new evidence on women participation rates in UK boardrooms. In particular, our objectives are to (i) examine the proportion of executive and non-executive directors who are women (ii) to document the degree to which women are deployed to key boardroom committees.