Women in the boardroom

U.S. counties with higher voter turnout, Census response rates and other measurements used to create a social capital ranking also tend to have a greater share of women in local company boardrooms.

Data on number of associations and non-profits is from 2014, voter turnout is the average for the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, census response rate is from 2010 and share of women on corporate boards is from 2018. The nearly 3,000 companies included in this study are all located in 414 primarily metropolitan counties. Data on number of associations and non-profits, and census response rate are obtained from Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development at the Pennsylvania State University. Voter turnout rate is based on data from the Social Capital Project of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress. Social capital index is based on authors’ own calculations and share of women on corporate boards is obtained from BoardEx. 'Social capital and board gender diversity,' Afzali, Silvola, Terjesen (2021)