4 ms·

This is an area where there are (I think) no perfect answers. One deeper problem is how boards tend to work in general -- often the people already on the board

This is an area where there are (I think) no perfect answers. One deeper problem is how boards tend to work in general -- often the people already on the board are involved in choosing new members, so things don't "fix themselves" over time. The best option (I think) would be to make sure as the most qualified and competent people take the jobs, I personally believe in that case you would end up with more women on company boards. One way to do that would be to have boards appointed by a completely independant group, but I suspect most company owners would hate that suggestion. Mandating many blue collar jobs wouldn't work, as there simply aren't enough women with the necessary qualifications, so you would simply shrink the sector by (making up a number I admit) 80%.

SpEd3Y 4y ago
It is for sure a very tricky problem. I also tend to think that if we hire the most competent and qualified people the numbers would naturally tend to 50% or whatever the men/women preference ratio for that job is. What we should strive to do, IMHO, is make sure that everyone has the same opportunities and there is no discrimination preventing different people to get a job. I agree that mandating many blue collar jobs would not work because of the low number of qualified women, but why would that not be the case mandating company board jobs? If we're saying we have very very few women in company boards, doesn't that mean we have very very few women that have experience for positions like those and consequently way more men that have experience and are more qualified? Since board members are such high end positions and paid very well you can't just double the number of such positions which means you'll end up picking women with less experience over men with more experience cause it's mandated. Hence you're picking the less qualified person for the job which will create friction. I think a way better solution would be creating incentives for companies to hire women in the boards or funding companies created by women. That way women can get the same degree of experience as men and then can compete for these positions with similar qualifications which I think will increase their numbers. But in my opinion mandating something like this creates a lot of friction. Government mandated people to wear masks and we all know how that went. So many people did everything in their power to resist that. I think it's human nature to try to resist when something is forced on you.

SpEd3Y 4y ago

It is for sure a very tricky problem. I also tend to think that if we hire the most competent and qualified people the numbers would naturally tend to 50% or whatever the men/women preference ratio for that job is. What we should strive to do, IMHO, is make sure that everyone has the same opportunities and there is no discrimination preventing different people to get a job. I agree that mandating many blue collar jobs would not work because of the low number of qualified women, but why would that not be the case mandating company board jobs? If we're saying we have very very few women in company boards, doesn't that mean we have very very few women that have experience for positions like those and consequently way more men that have experience and are more qualified? Since board members are such high end positions and paid very well you can't just double the number of such positions which means you'll end up picking women with less experience over men with more experience cause it's mandated. Hence you're picking the less qualified person for the job which will create friction. I think a way better solution would be creating incentives for companies to hire women in the boards or funding companies created by women. That way women can get the same degree of experience as men and then can compete for these positions with similar qualifications which I think will increase their numbers. But in my opinion mandating something like this creates a lot of friction. Government mandated people to wear masks and we all know how that went. So many people did everything in their power to resist that. I think it's human nature to try to resist when something is forced on you.