Gender Quotas Worked in Norway. Why Not Here?

Gender equity in the corporate world has long been a goal that’s paid much lip service, but has nothing to enforce it but good intentions. Unsatisfied with the slow progress, a handful of countries have, over the last ten years, embraced the idea of gender quotas to govern corporate boards (a potential solution to inequality Bryce Covert suggested in a piece for The New Republic this summer). According to the 2014 International Business Report, the percentage of world business leaders in favor of gender quotas has increased from 37 percent in 2013 to 45 percent in 2014. And it isn’t just in Europe, where the quota trend began. 68 percent of leaders surveyed in Latin American and 71 percent of those in Asia Pacific (not including Japan) supported gender quotas.