Growth in French women reps


Research published this month by DARES, the research arm of the French ministry of labour shows that over 11 years the proportion of women elected as employee representatives at workplace level has increased from 32% of the total in 2001 to 40% in 2012. 


They are now close to the proportion of women who work in the 27,000 private sector companies electing works councils and other comparable bodies — 42.5%.


The elections for these bodies are generally split according to grade. And the gap between the proportion of women employed and the proportion of women elected is highest for those in the higher grades. Women make up 33.9% of managers and engineers, but only 27.8% of their elected representatives. 


In contrast, for the category covering most employees, the gap between the proportion of women employed (44.2%) and the proportion of women elected (41.7%) is much smaller.


These figures pre-date the so-called Rebsamen law of 2015, which requires that lists of candidates proposed for election must match the gender breakdown of the company. However, as the DARES report points out, having gender-proportionate lists of candidates does not guarantee that those elected will also match the gender breakdown of the workforce.