Bye, bye Blogger

 From now on, you'll find me on Substack at laurafspira.substack.com. See you there!

Poor research and lazy journalism

Well, it's been a while since I've been sufficiently provoked to let off steam here but today's Guardian headline has made me very cross: "Companies with female leaders outperform those dominated by men, data shows" 

Data doesn't show any such thing. What matters is how data is interpreted. The extensive literature on board gender diversity shows that relevant data can be interpreted in a variety of ways. This means that policy makers and lazy journalists can cherry pick to find support for their arguments.

Anneliese Dodds no doubt has worthy intentions in flagging up an important role for women in post-pandemic economic recovery but her researchers have not helped her cause. The article does at least provide links to the research cited in support of the misleading headline: a report from McKinsey (interesting but not peer-reviewed academic research) and a single article  from a 3 star journal. A competent researcher in the HoC library could have found the work of Alex Edmans, whose academic credentials are rather more impressive than those authors. Alex says it all here. I shall be sending this link to Anneliese (who happens to be my MP) and to Alexandra Topping at the Guardian.

Rant over. Back to worrying about the much more important stuff going on in the world.