New Index Measures Firms' Gender Diversity (and Related Financial Performance) - Building Gender Balanced Business

• KLD Research & Analytics and Pax World are developing the Gender Investment Index series of data for the International Finance Corporation.

• The effort aims to better illustrate to companies and investors the advantages of gender diversity, thus advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace and beyond.

• IFC, which is a member of the World Bank Group, is sponsoring the index series as part of its global Gender Entrepreneurship Markets program, which seeks to better tap the potential of women in emerging markets.

• The five indices in the series will include a benchmark, three regional indexes, and a global top 100 best performers in gender empowerment.

• The index series will include large and mid cap companies that recruit, retain and promote women, beginning with rankings of companies in the FTSE All-World Developed Index.

• Julie Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Pax World, told SocialFunds.com, “Our review of literature indicates that with very few exceptions a positive correlation, and in some cases a positive causality, can be found to exist between gender empowerment and financial performance.”

• “What we found to be especially interesting in our research was the positive correlation between gender diversity in Boards of Directors and senior management and the quality of earnings reported by companies,” Gorte said.

• Pax World Management Corp. is the investment adviser to Pax World Funds, which was a pioneer in what it calls sustainable investing and remains among the largest fund groups in the sector. KLD Research & Analytics, Inc., is an independent investment research firm that is credited with introducing the first socially responsible investment index, in 1990.

SocialFunds.com’s report