Corporate Boards: Strategies to Address Representation of Women Include Federal Disclosure Requirements, GAO-16-30: Published: Dec 3, 2015. Publicly Released: Jan 4, 2016: “Representation of women on the boards of U.S. publicly-traded companies has been increasing, but greater gender balance could take many years. In 2014, women comprised about 16 percent of board seats in the S&P 1500, up from 8 percent in 1997. This increase was partly driven by a rise in women’s representation among new board directors. However, even if equal proportions of women and men joined boards each year beginning in 2015, GAO estimated that it could take more than four decades for women’s representation on boards to be on par with that of men’s.”