Below is an excerpt from ISS-Corporate’s recently released paper “Glacial Progress for Ethnically Diverse Boards in Canada”. The full paper is available for download from the ISS-Corporate online library.
Underrepresented ethnic groups have all made progress in obtaining board seats in Canada over the last five years; unfortunately, the pace is slow. At the current rate, it would take 10 years for overall board representation of diverse ethnicities to match the country’s demographic makeup.
ISS-Corporate looked into Institutional Shareholder Services data on Canadian boards from 2019 to 2023 to track the changes in ethnic composition. Our analysis considers on average 229 S&P/TSX 60 and S&P/TSX Composite companies with around 2,200 board seats per year
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- All ethnic groups except for Caucasian/White have more representation today than five years ago.
- Diverse director progress is still slow, as 87.3% of Canada’s S&P/TSX directors are Caucasian/White.
- Indian/South Asian directors rank second in prevalence, occupying 3.1% of all board seats.
- Black/African American participation has quadrupled since 2019.
- If the trend continues, women will occupy most of the seats held by underrepresented groups.
By: Sandra Herrera Lopez, PhD, Vice President, ESG Content & Data Analytics, ISS-Corporate
