Daniella Gama-Diaz is Associate Editor at Equilar, Inc. This post is based on an Equilar memorandum by Ms. Gama-Diaz, Zeynep Akca, Jacob Doty, Louisa Lan, and Paul Richardson.
For the ninth consecutive quarter, the Equilar Gender Diversity Index (GDI) has increased. With the percentage of women on the boards of Russell 3000 companies increasing from 20.9% in Q3 2019 to 21.5% in Q4 2019, the GDI is now 0.43, where 1.0 represents parity among men and women. The continuous upward trend of women on boards has pushed the GDI to the highest point it has ever been.
While the past few years have represented progress, 2019 saw the most significant growth for women on corporate boards. Q2 2019 was the first time the percentage of women on Russell 3000 boards exceeded 20%, while Q3 further pushed this statistic to 20.9% and Q4 rounded out the decade at 21.5%. With over 21% of Russell 3000 board seats belonging to women, 114 companies have boards with between 40% and 50% women. When Equilar began tracking the GDI in January 2017, only 15% of board seats in the Russell 3000 were held by women.
