Over the past five years, about 31% of the organization’s elected leaders have been women, but, over the past three years, only 27% of the conference presenters have been women.
Steps Toward Diversity
Andrew Rallis, who was the SOA president in June 2020, said then that the SOA needs to do a better job of promoting diversity.
“The low numbers of African-Americans and other people of color among our candidates, members, and leaders here in the U.S. where more than 65 percent of our members live, show we need to do much more so that our profession can truly reflect the rich diversity of this country and realize our vision for an open, welcoming profession for all,” Rallis wrote in an open letter to SOA members.
The SOA says one way to start increasing diversity in the actuarial profession is to support organizations such as the International Association of Black Actuaries, the Organization of Latino Actuaries and the Sexuality and Gender Alliance of Actuaries.
Another way actuaries can help is by giving the SOA information about their race and ethnicity, officials say.
The SOA itself also has other projects going on related to the nuts and bolts of insurance.
One team, for example, is working to add questions of interest to communities of color in America to ongoing research projects.
Another SOA team is trying to fight unintentional bias in big data and models by developing a certificate program and ethical and responsible use of big data,
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