US corporate gender diversity is improving very slowly

Significance

However, above-trend retirement rates among older white-collar male employees because of the pandemic, the tightness of labour markets for professionals and stakeholder pressures for greater corporate diversity are allowing women executives to job hop to significantly higher salaries, narrowing the gender pay gap in senior management.

Impacts

• New wage transparency laws in New York and Colorado will highlight gender pay gaps in those states, a potential pressure to narrow them.
• Gender pay gaps are narrower for highly visible roles, but not at lower levels.
• Progress on board-level diversity will be slow, absent more states like California imposing quotas.