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03/06/2008: "Norway demands 40% women executives, fires men"
This month, Norway set a new global record. It now has, at 40%, the highest proportion of female non-executive directors in the world, an achievement engineered by the introduction of a compulsory quota. Two years ago, after several years of voluntary compliance had failed to lead to a sufficient number of female board members, 463 "ASAs" - publicly listed companies over a certain size - were told to change the composition of their boards or risk dissolution.
"A woman comes in, a man goes out. That's how the quota works; that's the law," says Kjell Erik Řie, deputy minister of children and equality, in the centre-left "Red-Green" coalition government in Oslo. "Very seldom do men let go of power easily. But when you start using the half of the talent you have previously ignored, then everybody gains."
In 2002, only 7.1% of non-executive directors of ASAs were female. When they introduced the 40% quota, the government had expected a widespread rebellion, but by the final deadline for compliance - February 22 this year - only a handful of companies had failed to meet it.
[ Meritocracy is replaced by political correctness. Again, it's not tolerance, it's the appearance of tolerance by fighting back against the naturally successful and replacing them with those who might not even want to be there. ]
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,,2262450,00.html