Fund-Manager Gender Gap Persists

Despite the growing number of mutual funds and ETFs, the percentage of female portfolio managers hasn’t changed in twenty years. At the end of 2019, 14% of fund managers were women, the same percentage as in 2000, according to a new report from Morningstar, based on a global database of more than 25,000 fund managers.

“The gender gap is a chasm in the fund industry,” writes Laura Lallos, senior mutual fund analyst at Morningstar and author of the report, “Women in Investing: Morningstar’s View.” “The cause is likely a complicated combination of structural barriers and implicit biases. But it has nothing to do with ability.”

A 2018 Morningstar study of fund manager performance found that women were “just as good as men at managing funds.” But their presence on corporate boards and in corporate management is more distinguished, generating stronger share price performance, according to reports from Credit Suisse.