Women's underrepresentation in management is a persistent social problem. We take a new approach to understanding the lack of managerial gender diversity by investigating how U.S. state equal employment opportunity laws are related to women's presence in upper and lower management. We draw on data from 2010 EEO-1 reports documenting managerial sex composition in U.S. work establishments and a state employment law database to answer our research questions. State mandates are found to be differentially associated with upper-versus lower-level managerial gender diversity. Establishments in states with an equal pay law, or that once ratified the ERA, employ more women in upper management than those in states without such a law or in nonratifying states, but this holds only in establishments in industries that typically employ women. In contrast, establishments in states that require anti-discrimination workplace postings employ fewer women in upper-management than those in states without such a requirement. State equal pay laws, especially those adopted before federal equal pay legislation, family responsibility discrimination protections, and past ERA ratification are positively associated with women's lower-level managerial presence. Conversely, state expanded family and medical leave coverage, prohibited sex discrimination, and specific posting rules are negatively associated with women's presence in lower management. Results hold net of establishment, state, firm, and industry factors. We discuss the meaning behind differences across managerial level and the role of state regulation in moving toward greater managerial gender equity. Keywords: managerial gender diversity; state law; upper management; lower management; EEO-1 data.Women's underrepresentation in U.S. managerial positions, especially at the top level, is a well-documented and persistent social problem (see Cohen, Huffman, and Knauer 2009;Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012). Women's absence in management limits their access to highly compensated jobs and positions with power, authority, and autonomy (Huffman, Cohen, and Pearlman 2010). Scholars have identified both individual-level (Correll 2004;Okamoto and England 1999) and organizational-level determinants of women in management (see Huffman 2012 for a review). Additionally, U.S.-based research has shown how federal equal employment opportunity (EEO) law impacts women's presence in management (Stainback and TomaskovicDevey 2012). Missing from these discussions, however, is documentation of the extent to which state-level EEO mandates relate to gender diversity across levels of management. In fact, we know of no comprehensive analysis examining the impact of U.S. state-level EEO statutes pertaining to gender-based rights on establishment-level managerial sex composition. Nor are we aware of research that separately examines the processes of gender diversity in lower and upper management.