Women on boards global trends in gender diversity on corporate boards

Many global asset owners and other institutional investors are increasingly focused on the gender composition of company boards.

MSCI ESG Research’s research shows that companies in the MSCI World Index with strong female leadership generated a Return on Equity of 10.1% per year versus 7.4% for those without (as of September 9, 2015, measured on an equal-weighted basis), confirming previous research, though we could not establish causality.

We also found that companies lacking board diversity suffered more governance- related controversies than average.  We did not, however, find strong evidence that having more women in board positions indicates greater risk aversion (…)