Robert Wright

This study suggests that the fairest and most effective means of achieving and sustaining gender parity in corporate leadership roles is to convince corporations to randomly select their leaders from a pool of qualified candidates. Currently, most women rationally prefer traditional gendered career paths because they do not expect the in-groups that hire corporate leaders to select them, even if qualified. In a regime where all qualified candidates have an equal chance of selection, however, more women would prefer career paths preparing them for corporate leadership roles. Because that outcome cannot be demonstrated experimentally, it is shown theoretically by use of a simple relative cost-benefit model and analogically through historical and contemporary real-world applications of the random selection process. The model and analogies all show that random selection can increase the number of qualified female corporate leaders. The paper concludes that random selection could also ensure rational parity for members of all groups, ethnic, racial, trans, and so forth, unduly underrepresented in corporate leadership positions.