The following post comes to us from Anne L. Alstott, Jacquin D. Bierman Professor in Taxation of Yale Law School.
Gender quotas for corporate boards of directors have attracted attention in Europe, where a number of countries have enacted mandatory or voluntary quotas. In the United States, some activists, scholars, and policy makers have advocated quotas as a way to shatter the glass ceiling for women in business and (possibly) to improve corporate decisionmaking.
The appeal of quotas is that they represent the kind of structural change that could alter business practices that exclude women from leadership roles. Social psychology has demonstrated that gender discrimination flourishes when institutions allow actors to give free reign to stereotypes and to unconscious biases. Effective anti-discrimination measures must inform actors about these biases and limit the effects of bias on hiring, promotion, and the distribution of rewards in the workplace and in society. Still, quotas may have a dark side: critics worry that quotas could damage women’s career prospects if new directors are seen as tokens. Critics also predict that quotas could harm corporate performance, if new female directors are untrained or inexperienced. Empirical claims on both sides await further study by scholars.
