Picturing Diversity: Patterns of Race/Ethnicity and Gender Representation on Corporate Websites

We measure, describe, evaluate and offer initial explanations for the levels of and intertemporal changes in the racial/ethnic and male/female diversities of the adults shown on the DEI page of S&P 500® firms’ websites before George Floyd’s murder (Q4:2019), after George Floyd’s murder (Q4:2024), and after President Trump’s second presidential term began (Q2:2025). Defining racial/ethnic and male/female diversity as being optimally representative when their densities match the US adult population, we report five main findings. [1] Racial/ethnic densities pre-George Floyd reflected an imbalance in representation: Asians and Blacks were over-represented, while Hispanics and Whites were under-represented. [2] Black female over-representation and White male under-representation increased post-George Floyd. [3] Post-President Trump II, Asians and Blacks remain over-represented, Hispanics and Whites under-represented. [4] Similar but smaller racial/ethnic misrepresentations are present on firms’ Home and About Us pages. [5] Whereas pre-George Floyd, male/female densities on DEI webpages matched the US adult population, after George Floyd’s murder females have been over-represented. We offer the preliminary explanations that our race/ethnicity findings reflect firms’ responses to internal and external pressures arising from U.S. social movements of the 2010s, which were galvanized by a series of police-involved shootings of Black victims, whereas Asian/Hispanic over-/under-representations stem from large differences in educational qualifications that lead firms for profit-maximizing reasons aimed at recruiting the best prepared talent to visually connect more with Asian than with Hispanic visitors to their DEI, Home and About Us pages.October 31, 2025