In 2023, women accounted for over half the French population (52%) and almost half the labour force (49%), but only 25% of business leaders, defined here as corporate officers (e.g. managing director of a limited liability company or CEO of a public limited company). This figure falls to 17% in the largest corporate structures (i.e., in intermediate-sized enterprises (ISEs), and larger enterprises (LEs), compared with 26% in microenterprises and 19% in other SMEs (see Chart 1, and Berardi and Bureau, 2025 (in french), for a more detailed presentation of the elements summarised in this blog post).
The number of female business leaders has increased over the last twenty years, particularly in ISEs and LEs, where women represented only around 5% at the turn of the 21st century. But progress remains relatively slow and, at this rate, achieving gender parity will still take many years.
The gender imbalance is even more marked if we focus on large listed groups. Women only headed up 6.25% of CAC 40 companies in 2023 (compared with 3.75% in 2022, and 2.5% in 2021). In recent years however, the French legislator has sought to encourage the appointment of more women to the governance bodies of large companies. The Copé-Zimmermann Act of 2011 introduced female quotas for the boards of directors and supervisory boards of ISEs-LEs (40% since 2017). The Rixain Act of 2021 introduced female quotas for the executive committees (which assist the CEO and include a group’s key senior managers) of companies with more than 1,000 employees (30% by 2026, 40% by 2029). In recent years, these laws have clearly boosted the proportion of women on boards of directors and supervisory boards (up from 29% to 46% in less than ten years for SBF 120 companies), and on executive committees (up from 12% to 29%).
Consequently, France leads OECD countries in terms of the proportion of women on the boards of directors and supervisory boards of listed groups (46% in 2022, compared with 43% in Italy, 35% in Germany, 32% in the United States and 15% in Japan, for example; see OECD, 2023a). It also ranks in the top third of OECD countries in terms of the proportion of women managers more generally (i.e., not just executive committees, and for both listed and unlisted companies): 38% in 2021, compared with 41% in the United States, 29% in Germany and Italy, and 13% in Japan (see OECD, 2023b). While we do not have sufficiently reliable data to make the same comparison for business leaders alone, there is every reason to believe that the paucity of female business leaders highlighted above is by no means a French exception.
The presence of female managers varies greatly from one sector of activity to another
The least feminised sectors are construction and transport, with 4% and 10% respectively of companies run predominantly by women (see Chart 2). By way of contrast, the sectors with the highest proportion of women are education, health and social work (35%) and “other services” (46%). The latter corresponds to French NAF sub-sectors “R. Arts, entertainment and recreation” and “S. Other service activities”.
At a more detailed sectoral level (i.e., 4-digit NAF codes), the results become especially gendered: the sub-sectors with the highest proportion of women are jewellery, childcare, hairdressing, beauty care, perfumes, clothing and flowers. Conversely, the sub-sectors with the lowest proportion of women are electronics, electricity, plumbing, construction and machinery.
Chart 2 Percentage of companies run by women in 2023 – by sector of activity