Gender Pay Equality Reporting in Germany and Poland: An Econometric Investigation

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of EU Directive 2014/95/EU concerning the disclosure of non-financial information on gender pay equality reporting in Germany and Poland. Mainly building on neo-institutional theory, we formulate several hypotheses related to the positive association between the quality of disclosure related to gender equality, as an explained variable and environmental and organizational-level explanatory variables, such as the enactment of NFRD-related laws in both countries, the age of investigated enterprises since an IPO, and company size, controlled for industry affiliation and financial performance. The results of the panel analysis based on a random effects ordered logit regression show that the effect of the Directive is significant for both countries, albeit greater in the case of Poland, while the findings concerning the remaining variables are mixed. We discuss the related results by considering the institutional environments in both countries, and we additionally outline the implications of our study for both theory and practice. Keywords: Gender pay equality, Non-financial reporting, Directive 2014/95/EU, Germany, Poland, Institutional isomorphism