Half of women on boards like quotas but male colleagues say no - survey

Article here. Excerpt:

'Half of women sitting on corporate boards of directors around the world support quota systems to fix stubborn gender imbalances in the boardroom, but less than 10 percent of their male colleagues agree, said a study released this week.

Female directors are also more likely than men to approve of term limits and mandatory retirement ages to change corporate board membership, said the survey by Harvard Business School researchers, the WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD) Foundation and Spencer Stuart, a consulting firm.

Asked how they arrived in their board appointments, 39 percent of women said their gender was a significant factor.

Just 1 percent of men said the same, said the survey released on Wednesday.

Men and women were divided as well on the reasons that female board membership remains low, said the survey, which culled responses from more than 4,000 male and female directors from 60 nations.

Male directors, particularly older men, say there is a "lack of qualified female candidates," it said.

But female directors say diversity is not a board priority and traditional networks tend to be male-dominated, it said.'