Big Investors Are Better Than Quotas at Getting More Women on Boards

Study finds that campaigns to improve board diversity drove a spike in female directors

The three largest money managers in the US have been more successful in boosting the share of women in S&P 500 boardrooms than quota-like laws, new research finds.

Campaigns by BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc. and State Street Corp. drove American corporations to add at least 2.5 times as many female directors in 2019 as they had in 2016, a working paper released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research found. Firms with more of their shares held by these big funds were more likely to add women to their boards.

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