[dkarl]

It can be causation without female workers adding anything by their "femaleness." Any effort to break old routines can result in replacing old, unexamined habits with better ones.

Case in point: I read an article in the Financial Times several years back about how Norwegian companies adapted to the quota law requiring 40% of board members to be female. Norwegian companies were kind of at a loss because they normally recruited directors out of a pool of candidates known to their current directors and executives. They knew those traditional candidates very well, often personally, and knew their skills, qualifications, and trustworthiness. Unfortunately, that pool didn't include very many women.

The companies were leery of hiring complete strangers into their boardrooms. Still, they were stuck with it, so they did their best. They identified skills and knowledge that would complement their existing boards and launched international searches for qualified candidates. Just by taking those steps, which most of companies had never bothered with before, they discovered a huge number of stellar candidates with skills that were completely lacking in Norwegian boardrooms. The candidates they found were significantly younger, more accomplished, and more internationally savvy than the usual old boys' club candidates. Result: big win for Norwegian corporations. Instead of looking at a few dozen old Scandinavian men, they started recruiting out of a huge pool of international talent. Being limited to female candidates was a minor factor at that point. At least, that's how the FT presented it.