A quota to ensure more women are on the board of big companies will not help women in middle management roles, nor will it boost profitability, according to research by two government think tanks.

The CPB and SCP base their claim on a study of the situation in other European countries where quotas have been introduced and compared that to the Dutch market.

The report says that in order to ensure more women work at every level of a company, both the government and industry will have to take additional action.

In particular, more needs to be done to tackle stereotypes and efforts should be made to encourage more women to work full time. Some 74% of Dutch women do not work the standard 40-hour week.

Efforts over the past 10 years have boosted the percentage of women in top private sector jobs from 4% to around 15%, still well below the target of 30%. The public and non-profit sectors have already reached the target.

The report also said that research suggesting companies with more women on the management team are more profitable may not be true.

‘There is a correlation between companies which invest in diversity and their profitability,’ CPB researcher Egbert Jongen told the Financieele Dagblad. ‘But the question is, is there a causal link between more women on the board and increased profit. And that is not the case.’