The consulting giant touts its studies purporting to show that race- and gender-conscious hiring leads to greater profits—but it likely has the causation backward.
Last year, McKinsey & Company released a study purporting to demonstrate that corporations with more diverse leadership—more women and racial minorities in executive positions—were also more profitable. The consulting behemoth’s findings were consistent with those of its previous three diversity studies, in 2015, 2018, and 2020, each of which had been cited across industries and government institutions as proof of the supposed financial benefits of race- and gender-conscious hiring policies. Now, a new paper raises questions about McKinsey’s methodology and suggests that its advertised findings may have gotten the causation backward: financial success may lead corporations to embrace diversity efforts, rather than the other way around.
