Higher Share Of Women Research Articles

Gender differences in executive compensation in Spain

PurposeIn the context of sustainable development goal 5 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda: “Achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment”, where gender equality is not only a matter of justice but also essential to achieve sustainable development, this paper aims to examine the gender pay gap in executive director compensation and the influence of female board representation and participation in nomination and remuneration committee (NRC) on this gap in Spanish listed firms over the period 2012–2022.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is conducted using a data set created by the authors, which includes executive director compensation data for 164 unique firms. This data set comprises 128 distinct observations for a given firm and year for women, and 2,333 observations for men. The authors estimate ordinary least squares models, clustering standard errors by executive. The authors use Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to decompose gender differences in compensation into differences in the characteristics of men and women and differences in the return on the same characteristics.FindingsThe authors find evidence of pay penalty for female executive directors compared to male counterparts. After controlling for firm, board and executive characteristics, the authors find that women earn 27% less than comparable men. The penalty is lower in companies with a higher share of women on the compensation committee, suggesting that women’s participation plays a role in setting a more equal remuneration policy. The gender gap in executive compensation narrows over time due to a substantial reduction of the differences between men and women in both characteristics and the return on these characteristics.Originality/valueThis study is one of the few analysing the gender gap in executive director compensation and its evolution in Spain. It specifically explores how gender diversity on both the board and the NRC impacts this gap. The analysis is focused on the most recent period characterized by important efforts to promote gender diversity.

Managing bank liquidity hoarding during uncertain times: The role of board gender diversity

AbstractThis paper examines the effect of executive board gender diversity on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and bank liquidity hoarding (LH). We focus on the Russian banking sector, which, relative to most of the world, has a high share of women on bank executive boards. Using the news‐based EPU index developed by Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016) and LH measures proposed by Berger, Guedhami, Kim, and Li (2022), we exploit a unique dataset from the Russian banking sector. While higher economic policy uncertainty tends to increase liquidity hoarding, we find that this effect diminishes as the gender diversity of the board increases. We attribute this finding to the moderating influence of gender diversity on stability and overreaction in decision‐making. Additionally, we find that the channel through which board gender diversity affects the impact of economic policy uncertainty on liquidity hoarding takes place via the hoarding of liquid assets. Our findings are robust to the use of alternative measures for economic policy uncertainty and gender diversity and hold after addressing endogeneity concerns. As women are still significantly under‐represented on bank boards in most countries, these results argue for policies to promote gender diversity on bank boards as a means of limiting the detrimental effects of economic policy uncertainty.

Fortschritte bei Frauen in Führungspositionen – doch weitere Anstrengungen nötig

Abstract Women’s representation on corporate boards of German companies increased again in 2023. In the largest 200 firms, 18 % of executive board members and 32 % of supervisory board members were women. However, in most companies, there is at most one woman on the executive board and the share of women among CEOs has decreased in many places. Companies, policymakers and other stakeholders must make greater efforts to achieve parity. An analysis of IAB data shows that a higher share of women as managers in establishments decreases the gender pay gap among subordinates, however, only if the share at the highest management level exceeds one-third.

We see symbols but not saviors: Women's representation and the political attitudes of working‐class women

AbstractHow does women's representation in politics affect working‐class women's attitudes toward political processes? Despite their increasing presence in the workforce, many women continue to concentrate in occupational sectors characterized by high economic vulnerability and low social status. This dynamic has important implications for the politics of representation. Previous studies suggest that women politicians positively affect women voters' political attitudes, but women's representation in politics is likely to have differing impacts on the political attitudes of working‐class and professional women. This study demonstrates that women's representation has a large class impact among women voters. In particular, using cross‐national data from 31 OECD countries as well as panel survey data from the British Election Study, we show that in countries with a higher degree of women's representation, there is more skepticism among women in low‐skill sectors toward voting and leadership than among those in white‐collar sectors. This is because there exist higher standards of accountability and relatability for women representatives among women voters. Given such high expectations, there is greater room for dissatisfaction among working‐class women than among their white‐collar counterparts when they constantly experience occupational segregation despite a high share of women in politics. In these settings, by contrast, women voters with high‐skill jobs are more likely to believe that voting and leadership matter, as they can better associate themselves with women political elites. Since men voters do not have strong expectations for relatability and accountability for public officeholders, the class impact of women's representation is weak among men. These findings have important implications for the symbolic representation of marginalized groups and democratic accountability.

Understanding the Macroeconomic Effects of Female Participation in the Labour Market

Throughout history, women have struggled to find their place in the labour market. Their participation in the labour market is usually characterised by worse working conditions; they tend to work in lower-paid jobs, under worse social conditions, and in the vast majority of cases their work in the household is not credited. Women make up half of the world’s population, and their non-participation in the labour force has negative consequences for economic growth. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of women’s participation in the labour market on living standard in the European Union. Data on women’s participation in entrepreneurship and politics were also analysed as part of this work. Panel data analysis was conducted for the period 2009–2022 for 27 members of the European Union, using fixed and random effects. The results show that long-term unemployment has a negative impact on GDP per capita. Moreover, a higher share of women in parliament and better education of women is confirmed to be crucial for GDP per capita growth. Failure to include women could have serious consequences for economic growth. The key to success is education and social change that enable women to play the same role as men in the labour market.

Financial resilience of Spanish wineries during the COVID-19 lockdown

Purpose This study aims to focus on the impact of COVID-19 on the Spanish wine sector and the financial resilience of Spanish wineries in the period 2019–2020. Design/methodology/approach The data set contains 355 limited companies of the Spanish wine sector which were active in the period 2019–2020. The explanatory variables used are size and age of the company, exports, subsidies and gender distribution in the workforce. The financial statements of the companies are treated as compositional data, using log-ratios for asset structure, leverage, margin, turnover and debt maturity. The first-difference estimator is used for the panel-data model relating the differences in the log-ratios between 2020 and 2019 to the explanatory variables. Findings In average terms, margin and turnover have significantly worsened between 2019 and 2020, while debt maturity has increased. A larger firm size, a greater age, a higher share of women in the workforce and subsidies have made wineries more resilient between 2019 and 2020. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first financial statement analysis of the impact of COVID-19 in the winery sector.

The trade-off between health system resiliency and efficiency: evidence from COVID-19 in European regions

The objective of this paper was to investigate the existence of a trade-off between health system resilience and the economic efficiency of the health system, using data for 173 regions in the European Union and the European Free Trade Association countries. Data Envelopment Analysis was used to measure the efficiency of regional health systems before the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, a spatial econometrics model was used to estimate whether this measure of efficiency, adjusted for several covariates, has a significant impact on regional health system resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, measured by the number of COVID-19 deaths per hundred thousand inhabitants. The results show that COVID-19 death rates were significantly higher in regions with higher population density, higher share of employment in industry, and higher share of women in the population. Results also show that regions with higher values of the health system efficiency index in 2017 had significantly higher rates of COVID-19 deaths in 2020 and 2021, suggesting the existence of a trade-off between health system efficiency and health system resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Female representation at the national level and women sport volunteering in European countries

AbstractThis study examines the moderating effects of national female labor force participation, women in sport leadership positions, and female medalists in recent Olympic Games on women's probability to volunteer in sport. Based on social role theory and the similarity attraction paradigm, we predict that all three factors result in a higher probability of women to volunteer in sport, but with differences among age groups. Linear probability models before and after applying coarsened exact matching were estimated using data from the 2017 Eurobarometer (n = 18,529). The results show that women have a significantly lower probability to volunteer in sport in countries with high female labor force participation and a high share of women in leadership positions in sport organizations. The likelihood of women volunteering in sport is significantly higher in countries with a high share of female Olympic medalists. The age group‐specific analysis asking whether volunteering should be considered an investment in human capital by younger women and/or an acquisition of social capital by older women, reveals that a high presence of women among leaders in sport organizations and Olympic medalists is significantly positively correlated with the probability for young women to volunteer in sport. Managers and leaders of nonprofit sport organizations learn from our study that volunteering should be perceived as an investment in human capital by younger women rather than an attempt to acquire social capital by older women.

Die Rekrutierung des Regierungspersonals in der Ampel-Koalition: Zwischen Repräsentation, Loyalität und Kompetenz

The new federal government of SPD, Greens, and FDP has set itself an ambitious agenda . For its implementation, government personnel is of considerable importance . This article examines how standard recruitment criteria for top executive positions - representation, loyalty, and competence - are reflected in the personnel profile of the “traffic-light” govern- ment . The analysis includes the 17 cabinet members, the 37 parliamentary state secretaries and state ministers as well as the 34 state secretaries . Overall, the personnel profile of the Scholz government is heavily partisan . Its outstanding feature is a high share of women in all office categories . At the same time, the recruitment patterns differ between the three coalition parties . The SPD’s governing personnel reflects not only the chancellor’s domi- nant role of in appointments but also the difficulties of achieving a balance between (gen- der) representation, loyalty, and competence in view of the inner-party power architecture . In the case of the Greens there is a clear emphasis on women’s representation and party loyalty, while the FDP’s government personnel is characterized by a combination of per- sonal loyalty at cabinet level and competence orientation in the other offices .

Determinants of Corruption: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

Corruption has been an epidemic in Africa since the age of colonization. The average level of corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa has been on the rise since. The results support the theory of self-reinforcing corruption in the sense that past corruption levels become an important determinant of current corruption levels due to strategic complementarity. The gap between more corrupt and less corrupt countries stays the same as more corrupt countries turning into more corrupt and less corrupt countries turning into less corrupt, demonstrating that corruption is pervasive in Sub-Saharan Africa. For the institutional determinants, we found that increase in political stability, better regulatory quality and higher level of democracy decreases the level of corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa. For the economic determinants, we found that a higher level of development and higher trade integration decreases the level of corruption and higher government expenditure and higher level of natural resources increases the level of corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa. For the socio demographic determinants, we found that higher level of infrastructure decreases the level of corruption while higher share of women in labor force, higher level of population and higher level of urbanization increases corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Regional variation in potentially inappropriate medicine use in older adults. - A national register-based cross-sectional study on economic, health system-related and patient-related characteristics.

Potentially inappropriate medicines (PIM), i.e. medicines in which the potential harms may outweigh the benefits, use may be associated with e.g. hospitalization, outpatient visits and health care costs. As regional institutions are often responsible for financing pharmaceuticals, understanding the regional variation of PIM use could help to tackle the associated problems and costs. To explore regional variation in PIM use among older adults and the association with regional health-system related, patient-related and economic characteristics and the frequency of PIM use. This is a nation-wide study based on the Finnish Prescription Register. PIM use was defined according to the Finnish Meds75+ database and regional characteristics derived from national statistics. Variation at the hospital district level was large, with the largest difference between the most and least PIM prescribing being 45.2%. The factors associated with high PIM prescribing were a higher share of women and a higher number of private doctor visits per inhabitant in a municipality. The factor associated to lower PIM prescribing was a higher share of Swedish-speaking population. The studied factors explained 23% of the municipal-level variation in PIM. Large regional differences may lead to regional inequality in prescribing and in the distribution of pharmaceutical costs. As only a small share of the variation was explained by economic, health system-related and patient-related factors, the key reasons may lie in unobserved prescribing practices.

Who Makes Geographical Knowledge? The Gender of Geography’s Gatekeepers

Building on the insight that all knowledge is situated and embodied, we analyze the gender of gatekeepers in the production of geographical knowledge in the current Anglophone publication landscape. Our results show that the share of women gatekeepers throughout the three selected sites—handbooks, progress reports, as well as editors and editorial boards of twenty-two geography journals—is consistently between 36 and 42 percent. These averages, however, disguise widely varying figures between different handbooks and journals. Comparing data for journal editors and editorial boards between 1999 and 2017, we find considerable growth in the presence of women. We also show that a higher share of female editors is associated with a higher share of women in editorial boards and in commissioned contributions. Editors and journals therefore need to put gender equity (but also racial and language equality) among the board and among contributors squarely on the agenda to create more space for new theoretical approaches, issues, and methodologies that center the lives and experiences of those living in spaces outside of the white Anglosphere—in the Global South and the Global East but also in the Global North.

The hourglass pattern of women’s representation

ABSTRACTWomen’s descriptive underrepresentation in parliaments is traditionally presented as the result of a process that discards women as they move up the ladder of recruitment. In this article, the case of Denmark is used to demonstrate an alternative hourglass pattern where women’s presence does decrease in the early phases but increase in the later phases. There are fewer women among party members than among party voters, and fewer women among potential candidates than among party members. However, there is a higher share of women among nominated candidates than among potential candidates, and women are more likely than men to get elected. This hourglass pattern is found at the aggregate level as well as across political party and over time. There are two implications of this finding: (1) the traditional pyramidal pattern cannot be taken for granted, and (2) in countries where women’s representation follows an hourglass shape, scholars and advocates alike should focus on membership recruitment by political parties and on internal party processes that aim to develop party members’ willingness to run for political office prior to the formal nomination process.

Political Gender Stereotypes in a List-PR System with a High Share of Women MPs: Competent Men versus Leftist Women?

On the basis of a candidate’s sex, voters ascribe particular personality traits, capacities, and opinions to candidates (often to the detriment of women), which are referred to as political gender stereotypes. The prevalence of political gender stereotypes has almost exclusively been investigated in the United States. As the presence of these stereotypes is highly dependent on contextual factors, we switch the context and investigate whether they are also present in a List-Proportional Representation (PR) system with a high share of women in parliament spread over different parties. The results of our experimental study, conducted in Flanders (Belgium), provide evidence for the existence of stereotypical patterns. The differences in perceived issue competence are, however, rather small and not always unequivocal, but larger differences were found in terms of ideological position. This leads us to conclude that misperceptions about women’s ideological orientation might be persistent and difficult to overcome. Moreover, our results demonstrate that the argument that female politicians are perceived as more leftist because they disproportionately belong to leftist parties does not hold, as female politicians are rather equally spread over the different parties in Belgium.

The gender‐corruption nexus in Asia

This study investigates the relationship between the share of women in parliament and the level of corruption in a panel of Asian countries during the period 1997–2015. This study applies the instrumental variable (IV) fixed effect approach using a system of gender quotas, which are either reserved seats, legal candidate quotas, or voluntary political party quotas as instruments to control for unobserved heterogeneity across countries, and to alleviate endogeneity bias. In addition, the generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator is applied in order to address the persistence of corruption, which causes biased and inefficient estimators in estimation. The main finding is that a higher share of women in parliament is associated with a lower level of corruption, which is consistent with evidence from studies by Dollar et al. (2001) and Swamy et al (2001).

Women in Finance: A Case for Closing Gaps

Women are underrepresented at all levels of the global financial system, from depositors and borrowers to bank board members and regulators. A new study at the IMF finds that greater inclusion of women as users, providers, and regulators of financial services would have benefits beyond addressing gender inequality. Narrowing the gender gap would foster greater stability in the banking system and enhance economic growth. It could also contribute to more effective monetary and fiscal policy. New evidence suggests that greater access for women to and use of accounts for financial transactions, savings, and insurance can have both economic and societal benefits. For example, women merchants who opened a basic bank account tend to invest more in their businesses, while female-headed households often spend more on education after opening a savings account. More inclusive financial systems in turn can magnify the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies by broadening financial markets and the tax base. The paper also studies the large gaps between the representation of men and women in leadership positions in banks and in banking-supervision agencies worldwide. It finds that, shockingly, women accounted for less than 2 percent of financial institutions’ chief executive officers and less than 20 percent of executive board members. The analysis suggests that, controlling for relevant bank- and country-specific factors, the presence of women as well as a higher share of women on bank boards appears associated with greater financial resilience. This study also finds that a higher share of women on boards of banking-supervision agencies is associated with greater bank stability. This evidence strengthens the case for closing the gender gaps in leadership positions in finance.

Banking on Women Leaders: A Case for More?

Using a new dataset, we measure the large gap between the representation of men and women in leadership positions in banks and bank supervision agencies worldwide. Women occupied less than 2 percent of bank CEOs positions, and less than 20 percent of the board seats in more than 80 percent of the observations across banks over time. Contrary to common perceptions, many low- and middle-income countries have a higher share of women in bank boards and banking supervision agency boards compared to advanced economies. Econometric analysis suggests that, controlling for relevant bank and country-specific factors, the presence of women as well as a higher share of women on bank boards is associated with greater bank stability, as represented by higher z-scores and lower nonperforming loan ratios. We also examine the share of women on boards of banking supervision agencies by compiling a new dataset. We find that it is associated with greater bank stability. Further research is needed to identify specific mechanisms through which these stability benefits are achieved, and to understand the conditions that have facilitated entry of women into leadership roles in banks and supervision agencies.

Banking on Women Leaders: A Case for More?

Using a new dataset, we measure the large gap between the representation of men and women in leadership positions in banks and bank supervision agencies worldwide. Women occupied less than 2 percent of bank CEOs positions, and less than 20 percent of the board seats in more than 80 percent of the observations across banks over time. Contrary to common perceptions, many low- and middle-income countries have a higher share of women in bank boards and banking supervision agency boards compared to advanced economies. Econometric analysis suggests that, controlling for relevant bank and country-specific factors, the presence of women as well as a higher share of women on bank boards is associated with greater bank stability, as represented by higher z-scores and lower nonperforming loan ratios. We also examine the share of women on boards of banking supervision agencies by compiling a new dataset. We find that it is associated with greater bank stability. Further research is needed to identify specific mechanisms through which these stability benefits are achieved, and to understand the conditions that have facilitated entry of women into leadership roles in banks and supervision agencies.

ПІДПРИЄМНИЦТВО В ІТ-СФЕРІ УКРАЇНИ: ГЕНДЕРНИЙ АСПЕКТ

The main purpose of the article is to analyse women`s entrepreneurship in the IT sphere of Ukraine. The presence of asymmetry in the structure of the population in Ukraine is justified. The structure of employment based on gender in Ukraine is also justified. The authors describe the main factors that determine the overall employment of women. There are patriarchal stereotypes in society about the women`s labour, which are present in the modern world. The socially positive value of women's entrepreneurship is revealed. The dynamics of the development of female entrepreneurship is analysed. It is shown that the high share of women entrepreneurs does not always serve as a signal of the country's high economic development. The low share of women entrepreneurs is a signal of the institutionalized discriminatory status of women in the country. Approaches to interpreting the IT sphere are analysed. The author's understanding of the IT sphere is revealed as an activity of people that are involved to the processes of development of a computerized system, storage, processing and management of data. The authors analyze dynamics of interest of Ukraine in specializations related to information technology on the example of Lviv Polytechnic National University. It is proved that the positioning of the IT sphere as a “male sphere” is changing. Women's entrepreneurship development in IT demonstrates a positive trend in Ukraine. in IT area, the number of private entrepreneurs founded by men increased by 80.6%, women - by 216.0% during the period 2016-2020. As a result, the share of women`s private entrepreneurship in the IT sphere increased from 16% to 25% during the period 2016-2020. Based on the analysis of the share of women by positions in the IT sphere, it was found that women are more likely to work on non-technical positions related to HR, marketing and administration.

Gender Effects on Organizational Problems—Evidence from Non-Profit Sports Clubs in Germany

In sports organizations, women are still under-represented, especially compared with their share of the general population. This holds true for management and leadership positions in particular, which could be explained by the lack of congruence between the female gender role and leader role. Therefore, the theoretical framework underpinning this study is based on role congruity theory. The research question is whether the share of women on the board and among members influences the perceived severity of organizational problems faced by sports organizations. This postulation is examined for a representative sample of sports clubs in Germany (n = 13,068). Analyses of variance are conducted with the severity of organizational problems and the share of women on the board and among club members. The results show that the share of women on the board and among members has a significant negative impact on the severity of organizational problems. Sports clubs with a high share of women on the board and among members perceive the severity of organizational problems as smaller on average. This finding is related to female leadership style, which might serve as one possible explanation. Based on these results, it is recommended that sports clubs appoint more women to management positions. This study provides empirical evidence that the often postulated increase in the share of women can be beneficial to sports organizations.