Researching Diversity in the Workplace
Data Sources to Study Diversity in the Workplace
The following datasets include variables that could be used to study diversity in organizations and the workplace.
These datasets are broad and tend to cover most large public companies in the US. More niche datasets do exist, so feel free to Ask Us is you're looking for something in particular.
Executives
Execucomp (in WRDS) has a flag for individual executive's gender and covers S&P 1500 companies (and some others). Execucomp can be linked with stock price and company financial data - contact us for more information.
- Compustat Execucomp (in WRDS) This link opens in a new windowFor: Current Stanford faculty, staff, and students for Stanford-related academic research purposes.
- Go to Compustat > Execucomp > Annual Compensation.
- Fill out the Web Query Form (instructions). In Step 3 select the Gender variable.
Board of Directors
ISS (in WRDS) has both a gender and ethnicity variable for individual board of director's and covers S&P 1500 companies. ISS can be linked with stock price and company financial data - contact us for more information.
- ISS (in WRDS) This link opens in a new windowFor: Current Stanford faculty, staff, and students for Stanford-related academic research purposes.
- Go to Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). Scroll down and select Directors.
- Fill out the Web Query Form (instructions). In Step 3, select the Female? and/or Ethnicity variables.
Workforce Diversity
General
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collects data in the Employer Information Report EEO-1 on gender and racial diversity in the workplace in private industry. See FAQs about the survey. Due to the time it takes the EEOC to process the data, there is a lag between when it is collected and then reported. Additional diversity employment data is available for other sectors like public schools and the government.
- EEOC - Special ReportsIndustry-specific reports and data and reports on the experiences of various ethnicities in workplaces in the U.S.
Tech
While many tech companies release diversity reports, we're not yet aware of a dataset that has aggregated them into a usable dataset. The following are some other options:
- Reveal Tech Diversity Data, 2016Part of the Center of Investigative Reporters, Reveal collected data on diversity in tech and released reports. This data is based on the 2016 EEO-1 survey.
Investors, Founders, & Startups
It is not easy to get an existing diversity data for startups and founders, but here are some options.
- CrunchbaseStarting in 2020, Crunchbase added diversity data for leaders of US-based organizations in August 2020. It includes race/ethnicity and gender tags for startup founders and CEOs and for leaders at investment firms, including managing partners. Note: The tags only highlight those who have historically been underrepresented (e.g. there is a tag for women but not men; there is a tag for Black not White). More about the Diversity Spotlight.
See more information on access to Crunchbase. - PitchBook This link opens in a new windowSee PitchBook Access help.
You can do a People search and filter by gender. You can also search for investors with a preference of invests in minority and women-owned business enterprises. Note that PitchBook does not allow for significant downloads, so it may not be the best source for a research project - PrivCo This link opens in a new windowUse your Stanford email to create an account
Focusing on U.S. Private companies, you can build a list of companies that are founded or led by the following groups using the keywords option in the advanced search:
American Indian / Alaska Native Founded (or Led)
Asian-founded (or Led)
Black-founded (or Led)
Latinx-founded (or Led)
LGBTQ-led
Middle Eastern / North African Founded (or Led)
Minority-led
Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander Led
Veteran-led
Women-Founded (or Led)
Small Businesses
- Census Bureau Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE)"ASE provides annual data on the number of business owners of employer businesses by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status by industry and geographic area."
- Census Bureau Survey of Business Owners (SBO)"SBO provides data on the number of business owners of employer and non-employer businesses by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status by industry and geographic area."
- Forthcoming Nonemployer Data"The Census Bureau is developing a new data program, partially funded by the Office of Advocacy, to provide annual estimates of the number of business owners of nonemployer businesses by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status. For more details, see working paper, Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D): Exploring Longitudinal Consistency and Sub-national Estimates. NES-D data is expected to be available in 2021."
Funds & Investors
There is not yet a wealth of information about the diversity of fund managers or investors.
- Preqin This link opens in a new windowPreqin focuses on funds and fund management. You can search for fund managers where the firm is minority-owned or women-owned or with a firm ethos of invests in minority-owned portfolio companies or invests in women-owned portfolio companies. Go to Fund Managers > Advanced Search > More Filters > Firm Details and ESG/Ethos.
- Preqin (in WRDS) This link opens in a new windowTo more easily download large amounts of data, use Preqin in WRDS. See WRDS access and search help.
- Once in the Preqin dataset, go to the Fund Managers file.
- In Step 1, select Search the entire database.
- In Step 2, select all query variables. In the Conditional Statements, in the drop down, select whether the firm is minority owned and/or whether the firm is women owned. It should equal TRUE.
- In step 3, select the desired query output and press Submit query.
Nonprofits
- GuideStar This link opens in a new windowIf a non-profit has disclosed diversity data of their leaders, you may find it in GuideStar. On the left of the search results page, select the Organizations tab. Expand the Diversity section and toggle on the option to filter to organizations providing diversity data. On the organization's profile, scroll to the Organizational demographics section.
- Foundation Directory Online This link opens in a new windowYou can search do an advanced search for grants and filter for a subject area of special population support and population served of ethnic and racial groups or gender and sexual identity. See the taxonomy.
The following reports have collected some data, primarily through surveys.