Italy at 22.2% and Norway at 18.2% take the two top spots, but South Africa's 7.8% female-held board appointments is just behind third-placed Austria, where 9.1% of board chairs are women.
"This is an important achievement, as the global average is only 4% for board chairs - we are also above the 5% average for the Europe, Middle East and Africa grouping. Clearly, there is still a long way to go and more companies need to make strides in this direction, but we are making progress we can be proud of," says Johan Erasmus, director at Deloitte.
South Africa, at 17.5%, is at ninth place for the percentage of total board seats occupied by women. The countries above South Africa in the survey - based on a dataset covering nearly 6,000 companies in 40 different countries - are all from Europe, with Norway leading with 36.7%.
"It really tells a story of how South Africa is encouraging change and striving for diversity. At Deloitte, we believe gender diversity is a business imperative - the benefits just cannot be ignored. Different perspectives can result in less risky and enhanced decision-making, and a better representation of stakeholders' interests," says Sudasha Naidoo, chairman of Deloitte Women in Leadership Committee.
"There is no doubt that a gender diverse team produces a better result. We have definitely realised this and celebrate it. This has been critical to our success as a diverse professional services firm, and is certainly something we consciously work at in our firm," says Naidoo.
However, the road ahead will be bumpy as the global perspective finds not enough top positions are occupied by women. "As the averages in the survey show, we are still a long way from closing the traditional gender gaps that have existed," says Erasmus.
While South Africa has made strides to improve its gender diversity, pressure is building to do more. According to the GMI Ratings 2013 Women on Boards survey, women held 11% of board seats globally, with South Africa ranking fifth in the world, with 17.9% female representation on the boards of the 59 companies included in the research.
The Deloitte survey shows a total of 12% board seats are occupied by women, with Asia Pacific at just 6% the worst performer. Europe, the Middle East and Europe leads at 18%, while 12% of board seats in the Americas are occupied by women. The industries with the highest levels of women on boards were found to be consumer business, at 13.6% and financial services, at 12%.
"The change is happening slowly and hard work lies ahead in ensuring a diversity of voices can be heard within the corporate world. The absence of women chairs of boards is revealing and the global statistics mask important differences between countries. More collaboration between organisations and policy-makers is needed to ensure improvements are made in the future," says Erasmus.
