[This letter was published in the ST Forum online version on 30 September 2014]
WHILE it is easy to infer from the drop in
female board representation to 7.9 per cent last year, from 8.6 per cent in
2012, that the glass ceiling exists across all segments of society (“Women here
still hit glass ceiling”; last Friday), the question of whether the same
phenomenon exists in the non-profit sector led me to do some research of my own
last year.
I trawled the websites of thirty-six voluntary
welfare organisations and found that out of a total of 385 board positions, 121
(31 per cent) were taken up by women. Three of these organisations even had
all-female boards.
It would be interesting to find out why there
are more women on the boards of non-profit organisations and who these women
are. It would be equally valuable to explore if there is less competition from
men for such roles, and what factors make non-profit boards more welcoming to
women.