Download NJ Appointed Officials Public Dataset (2024) (xlsx)
This report analyzes the gender and racial/ethnic demographics of appointed officials on state boards and commissions. The findings below are from a subset of 53 boards and commissions CAWP has tracked throughout the years as part of our Bipartisan Coalition for Women’s Appointments project. These boards are among the state's most visible boards and commissions, have high levels of responsibility and policymaking authority, or require financial disclosure. The list of boards can be found in the dataset linked above.
Please note, that the data does not include the 13.1% of the vacant positions on these boards and commissions.
Gender Diversity
Women comprise 35.4% of the appointed officials on boards included in this study, up from 33.1% in our 2023 report. For historical context, CAWP’s 2005 study of appointees found that women made up 22% of appointees on selected boards and commissions, and by 2019, this proportion had risen to 27%. While the current data illustrates a positive trend in women’s representation on appointed boards, the numbers remain far from parity. Of the 53 boards and commissions examined, three have no women members, and ten others have female representation below 15%.
Racial Diversity
White men accounted for 40.4% of appointees on the boards and commissions studied. According to 2023 U.S. Census population estimates, white men comprise 26.4% of New Jersey’s population. White men are the only overrepresented group among appointees and they are substantially overrepresented relative to their share of the population.
The disparities are stark for other demographic groups, particularly Asian American/Pacific Islanders and Latinas and Latinos. Asian American/Pacific Islanders hold under 3% of the state’s appointed offices despite comprising just over 11% of the population. Latinas and Latinos comprise 23% of the population but are only 6.5% of appointees. Given that New Jersey currently has the fourth-largest Asian American population and the eighth-largest Hispanic population in the country2, the marked underrepresentation signals a critical need for appointing authorities to make an intentional effort to ensure that they represent the communities they serve.
Coding for race in this project follows CAWP’s current method for race data collection. Appointees who identify as more than one race/ethnicity are included in each group with which they identify. As a result, percentages may not add up to 100% across levels.
2U.S. Census Bureau. "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023 (SC-EST2023-SR11H), https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-stat…