If you want real profound gender diversity at company boards, think of nominating housemothers

Sir, Daniel Thomas discusses the issue of having more women on corporate boards “Shareholders can do more to bring about boardroom diversity”, June 2.

More than a decade ago, as an Executive Director at the World Bank, I told my colleagues “We all have, more or less, quite similar backgrounds. If we were by means of a lottery substitute a plumber and a nurse, for two of us directors at the board, I am sure we would have a much wiser board”. I do not remember what my colleagues replied… or if they did.

Now, hearing the currently so frequent demand for more gender diversification, I feel the same. Having women educated similarly to the men they are to substitute for, brings much less diversity into the boardroom than what could be expected. 

If you want deeper meaning gender diversification, then invite housemothers to work some hours as board directors. The challenges mothers have to confront in their daily routines are way often much harder and much different from those that their then men board colleagues face.

Also, as an economist, to guarantee more gender income equality, start by arguing for parents, most usually women, to be remunerated for their socially so important work of taking care of their children or elderly. Unfortunately housemothers, just as the unemployed, do not have unions to take care of their interests. 

@PerKurowski

But in all this slicing and dicing there is no cube with the fathers and mothers of the US

Sir Jurek Martin in “Do not let Limbaugh pick the president” May 8, says “We are slicing and dicing the great American Community as it has never been sliced and diced before. Every component part is in play – black, white, men, women, Hispanic, Asian, rich, poor, old, young, Protestant, Catholic, evangelical, Jew and non-believer”.

To this we would then also add the slicing and dicing that the US Census Bureau does when reporting on the characteristics of citizens who voted or not in the elections and which, to Jurek Martin’s components adds: Nativity Status (whether born in the US or naturalized), Marital Status, Educational Attainment, Employment Status, Tenure (whether they own or rent the house), Duration of Residence at the place where they now live, Veteran Status and the Region where they originally come from.But surprisingly, at least to me, no one seems to be interested in the cube represented by fathers and mothers! Since the backbone of a nation is its people and the backbone of its people is God and families one has to wonder whether someone is taking the US backbone for granted.

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