
According to a new study conducted by Bloomberg, Ireland and Luxembourg are the two European countries that do not have any women in the CEO position on the official list. This fact comes as a reminder that there is still progress to make women have equal opportunities in positions and senior management positions.
For Ireland, the retirement of Margaret Sweeney, chief executive of Irish Residential Properties REIT, resulted in all 31 companies listed on Euronext Dublin being headed by men.
Bloomberg also highlighted a wider trend in which, according to a study by the European Institute for Gender Equality, only 8% of CEO positions in the largest listed companies across the EU-28 were held by women in the year 2023.
According to a recent report, Norway is the best country in Europe for female workers with a significant number of female business leaders, a narrow gender pay gap and fair birth policies.
PR company Reboot Online crunched the numbers from datasets of 32 European countries and found the Scandinavian country in first place based on data from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGC) and the World Economic Forum.
Norway scored 7.1 out of 10 in the analysis, followed by Iceland (6.53), Finland (5.03) and the Netherlands (5.49).
According to the analysis, Norway stood out from the crowd with its "impressive representation" of women in leadership positions with demonstrative five-year growth. This includes CEOs, executives, non-executives, presidents and board members of the largest listed companies in 2023.
According to the most up-to-date EIGC research, Norwegian men held 56% of senior management positions last year, but women occupied 43%. In total, women took 81 of the top jobs, EIGE says.