Progress slows on path to gender parity in the board room

By STAN CHOE
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The days when only men sat on U.S. corporate boards are nearly extinct. But the pace at which boards are moving toward gender parity has slowed, and it’ll likely be a decade before they’re evenly split. About one out of every four directors at U.S. publicly traded companies was a woman at the end of last year, at 26.7%. That’s up from 23.5% in 2020, and from just 15.1% five years earlier, according to executive-data firm Equilar. At the current pace, Equilar says corporate boardrooms could become 50% female by 2032.