A book with the title [amazon_link id=”0674089030″ target=”_blank” ]What Works: Gender Equality by Design [/amazon_link]is very enticing. Could the author, behavioural economist Iris Bohnet, really have the effective, evidence-based techniques for improving the earnings and job market outcomes of women relative to men? Does she have the answer to the dilemma that a woman can get on by acting like a man, only to be criticised and disliked for being unfeminine.

[amazon_image id=”0674089030″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]What Works: Gender Equality by Design[/amazon_image]

Well, Bohnet’s list of interventions is very persuasive and she cites plenty of supporting evidence. The first part of the book sets out the evidence of bias, conscious and unconscious. Part 2 is about people management, and focuses on businesses’ hiring, promotion and management. Part 3 is about education. The final part is a set of broader insights about ‘designing’ diversity and covers topics such as the importance of role models, the effectiveness of diverse groups in decision-making contexts (boards and elsewhere), and the role of social norms, of transparency, and indeed of ‘design’, a mnemonic for ‘data, experiment and signpost’. Bohnet argues that use of data uncovers bias, experimenting with changes, and using signposts – largely behavioural nudges – to change people’s behaviour. Do this, she promises, and gender inequality could be overcome within years, not decades.

i’m inclined to agree. The book’s evidence seems solid. There are many examples, such as Google’s discovery that its female employees were twice as likely to quit as the average. It mined its data to discover that the issue was really that parents were more likelt to leave, and it therefore extended both maternity and paternity leave. Now there is no difference between male and female quit rates. The Kennedy School’s own points system (Bohnet is a professor there) looks reasonably effective.

However, the question [amazon_link id=”0674089030″ target=”_blank” ]the book [/amazon_link]doesn’t address is what will get institutions and businesses to bother. Even those paying lip service to gender equality don’t have a strong incentive to change their ways, run (largely) by men (largely) for men. Why would they care if profits could be a bit higher in the long run if they acted differently? Things suit them very well as they are. It is hard to see organisations implementing the ‘what works’ measures described here unless they happen to be run by men (or women) who are already converts to the cause. It’s like the old joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a lightbulb (only one, but the lightbulb has to really want to change).

So I am ever more certain that tougher legislation will be required to get things moving. Targets for women on the boards of listed companies. Mandated minimum quotas for women and members of minorities in the senior ranks of bodies funded by taxpayers. When that day comes, all those institutions will be able to turn to this book to find out how to do it.