Workplace Diversity and Financial Performance

Researchers studied 9 years (2016–2024) of workforce data from 1,482 U.S. public companies. Every company with 100+ employees, and every federal contractor with 50+ employees, must file a government form called an EEO-1. It shows who works there by gender, race, and ethnicity. Researchers matched more than one million of these data points to real financial results. 

1. Diverse leadership teams do better financially 

Companies with more diverse (BIPOC) managers had stronger profits, faster revenue growth, better shareholder returns, and higher long-term stock prices. This showed up every single year from 2016 to 2024, before “DEI” became a political flashpoint. The numbers, not opinions, show this pattern. 

2. All-white-male leadership teams often score worse 

When a company’s management was mostly white men, financial performance tended to be weaker: lower profits, slower growth, weaker returns. This pattern was clearest at large companies (over $10 billion in value). The pattern was weaker and more varied for female representation, and it varied by industry.  

3. Cutting diversity oversight for political reasons raises a legal question 

Company boards have a legal duty to act in shareholders’ financial interest, not their own political preferences. Courts have said boards can’t put ideology ahead of returns. The report argues that cuts both ways: if diversity is linked to stronger results, boards that eliminate diversity oversight purely for political reasons, rather than financial ones, could be acting against that duty.  

Why This Matters Right Now 

• Disclosure is disappearing. Voluntary EEO-1 reporting dropped in 2025, and the EEOC is considering ending EEO-1 data collection altogether. 

• Silence is a red flag. Companies that never disclosed voluntarily (their data only came out through a public-records request) tend to have less diverse leadership. 

• The gap hasn’t closed. The workforce has grown more diverse, but the gap between the workforce and management hasn’t. Black and Latin employees face the widest gaps. 

• Politics, not finance, drove recent cuts. Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T agreed to end DEI programs as part of FCC regulatory deals, a political trade-off, not a financial decision. 

What People Can Do 

• Ask companies to publish EEO-1 data along with hiring, promotion, and retention numbers. 

• Push corporate boards to keep real oversight of workplace diversity programs. 

• Explain why EEO-1 data matters to investors — and that it’s at risk of disappearing.