Women’s representation on boards has gradually improved, but imbalances remain

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published its Report on diversity practices and the gender pay gap at the level of the management body. 

• Already 27.75% of non-executive directorships are held by women.

• Only 18.05% of executive directors are female. 

• Gender balance in Northern and Eastern Europe is generally better than in other parts of the EU. 

• 27.05% of institutions still lack the mandatory diversity policy. 

• A clear positive correlation between gender balance and Return on Equity (RoE) exists. 

• Women earn on average 9.48% less than male executive directors and 5.90% less than male non-executive directors. 

Notes to editors 

Gender equality is a core value of the EU, established as a fundamental right in the EU treaties. Since 2015, the EBA has been collecting data on credit institutions and investment firms’ diversity policies, the composition of the management body in terms of gender, age, geographical, educational and professional background and the gender pay gap at the level of the management body.  

The key findings of the Report, depicting the situation as of 31 December 2021, have been visualised in a dynamic way. To facilitate the navigation, here is the full list of the key indicators that you can find in the graphs: 

• Diversity policies & practices (DOWNLOAD DATA)

Slide 1: gender distribution in top management sorted by role & gender, and age & gender

Slide 2: female executive directors by age group

Slide 3: female directors in institutions’ management bodies by EU country 

Slide 4: implementation of diversity policies by EU country

• Gender diversity & profitability (DOWNLOAD DATA)
• Gender pay-gap (DOWNLOAD DATA)

The figures are based on a representative sample of 662 credit institutions and 129 investment firms selected by national competent authorities of all EU Member States, Lichtenstein and Iceland, on the basis of common criteria set out by the EBA. 

Credit institutions and investment firms (institutions) are legally required to adopt diversity policies and take into account diversity when selecting members of the management body. They are also legally obliged to apply gender neutral remuneration policies and to monitor the gender pay gap.  

The gender pay gap is defined as the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of men and women expressed as a percentage of the average gross hourly earnings of men. No adjustments to take into account the length of professional experience, educational background or other factors are made. As the remuneration of the CEO is typically higher than for other board positions, the inclusion of the mainly male CEOs leads to a higher pay gap, the further increase is however driven rather by the position than the gender.