经济学人下载:女人在商界,高处不胜寒

Proponents of quotas cite the superior performance of firms with female directors as evidence that quotas will benefit companies and their shareholders. Sceptics doubt this. The women that companies voluntarily appoint to boards are mostly excellent (indeed, they may have had to be particularly talented to overcome the barriers in their way). The effect of quotas, however, will be to elevate women who would not otherwise get onto the board. It would be surprising if they proved as able as those appointed without such help.
定额制的推崇者们认为该制度能对公司和股东都有益，他们将拥有女性掌舵者的公司的优越表现作为支撑这一观点的证据。持怀疑态度的人对次表示异议。公司自愿任命的女性董事会成员是最优秀的（事实上，他们可能是特别有才华的，已然跨越了她们职业道路上的障碍）。然而，定额制将会使那些本不够董事会成员资格的女性得到晋升。如果因定额制得到晋升的女性在在没有此帮助的情况下，能证明她们能表现出与那些得到任命的人一样的能力，这将会是令人惊讶的。

The evidence from Norway, the first European country to impose strict quotas, suggests that compulsion has been bad for business. Norwegian boards, which were 9% female in 2003, were ordered to become 40% female within five years. Many reached that target by window-dressing. The proportion of board members in Norway who are female is nearly three times greater than the proportion of executive directors (see chart).
来自挪威（第一个实施严格的定额制的欧洲国家）的证据显示，强制对商业来说并不是一件好事。在2003年，挪威公司的女性董事会成员仅占总数的9%。挪威公司被要求在5年内将其女性董事会成员的比例提高到40%。很多公司在窗口关闭前达到了这一目标。挪威公司女性董事会成员的比例已经是执行董事中女性比例的3倍之多。

To obey the law, Norwegian firms promoted many women who were less experienced than the directors they had before. These new hires appear to have done a poor job. A study by Amy Dittmar and Kenneth Ahern of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan found that firms that were forced to increase the share of women on their boards by more than ten percentage points saw one measure of corporate value (the ratio of market capitalisation to the replacement value of assets, known as Tobin’s Q) fall by 18%.
为了遵从法律，挪威公司提拔了许多女性，这些与之前的主管们相比显得缺乏经验。这些新进雇佣者的工作表现欠佳。密歇根大学罗斯商学院的艾米．迪特马（Amy Dittmar）和肯尼斯．赛尔特（Kenneth Ahern）的一项研究发现，公司被迫增加女性董事会成员比例超过10个百分点将会导致一项公司价值测量数据（托宾Q比率，即企业市场价值与资本重置成本之比）下降18个百分点。

Out of proportion
比例失衡

If quotas aren’t the answer, what is? The question is fiendishly complex. In most rich countries, women do as well as men or even better at school and university. In America, most new master’s degrees are awarded to women. Women also hold more than half of the entry-level jobs at American blue-chip companies.
如果实施定额制不是解决性别失衡的办法，那么该采用什么政策呢？这个问题极度复杂。在大部分的富裕国家，女性在教育方面与男性不相上下，甚至比其更加优秀。在美国，大部分的新授博士学位授予了女性。在美国的一流公司，初级职位的一半以上也有女性占据。