Gender diversity in top jobs boosts corporate profitability
Greater representation for women in the U.S. workforce is simply good business, yet unequal representation and toxic cultures that close women off from leadership opportunities remain. Quotas and recruitment initiatives alone are not enough to fix this — companies need to pay closer attention to the positive impact that gender diversity can have on performance and commit to rooting out biases on an institutional level.
Women are woefully underrepresented in leadership roles in business, even though there is no shortage of educated, qualified women to fill such roles. As of January 2018, out of the entire list of individuals leading Fortune 500 companies, just 5% were female. In contrast, recent data about higher education shows that women consistently earn the majority of doctoral degrees and outnumber men in graduate school overall. This disconnect suggests there must be something inherent and systematic in the American workplace that is preventing women from reaching major leadership positions.
Addressing this gap is not only the right thing to do; it’s also beneficial for businesses. Research suggests a remarkable correlation between gender diversity and company profitability — the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that for profitable companies, increasing the share of female leadership from zero to 30% is associated with a 15% increase in net revenue margin.
www.marketwatch.com
Read More
0 comments:
Join the Conversation