The number of women at board level in Dutch firms has fallen for the second year in a row, according to the latest Dutch Female Board Index compiled by Tilburg university professor Mijntje Lückerath

Just 13 women are on the executive boards of the 85 Dutch companies listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange, compared with 15 in the previous year – a drop from 7.1% to 6.2%. The number of women on non-executive supervisory boards rose slightly from 23.1% to 24.6%, of whom just over half are not Dutch nationals.

‘You can’t say that there were no new opportunities to join boards in the past year,’ Lückerath said. ‘In total, 24 new board members were appointed – 22 men and two women.’ One in four of the 64 new supervisory board members was female.

The Dutch government has given the corporate sector until 2020 to boost the number of women on boards to 30% and says quotas could be introduced if they fail to reach the target.

One reason for this year’s decline is the takeover of Delta Lloyd, which had two women on its board, by Nationale-Nederlanden. They did not make the board of the new line-up.

At 44%, Wolters Kluwer has the most Dutch women on its executive and supervisory boards. Vopak and Boskalis, who were bottom last year, both appointed a women to their boards in the intervening period but 18 of the 85 listed firms have no female members on either board.