Gender diversity, labour in the boardroom and gender quotas

Astrid Kunze () and Katrin Katrin Scharfenkamp ()
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Astrid Kunze: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH, Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway, https://www.nhh.no/en/employees/faculty/astrid-kunze/
Katrin Katrin Scharfenkamp: University of Bielefeld

No 16/2022, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: This study investigates boards of (non-executive) directors and whether employee representation has a positive effect on gender diversity on boards. We exploit rich, newly assembled board–director matched panel data for Norway and Germany, which contain unique information on whether a director represents shareholders or employees during the period around 2008, when a Norwegian board gender quota came into effect. We present two novel results that challenge previous thinking about the effects of board gender quotas on women directors. First, we find a positive impact of employee representation before the gender quota reform on gender diversity. Second, although the Norwegian gender quota has increased the probability of a director being female, the effect through employee representation has relatively decreased after and the implementation of the reform. We discuss potential mechanisms and implications for the design of co-determination laws and gender quotas.

Keywords: Affirmative action; employee representation; shared governance; co-determination; women; boards of directors; firm size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 J16 K30 L21 L25 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2022-10-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-lab
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