Women more drawn to boards of non-profit groups?

[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.