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Does board gender diversity matter in the banking sector? Evidence from Tunisia

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  • Hidaya Othmani

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of board gender diversity on banks’ performance and risk for the case of a developing African country. Our sample includes a unique data set of Tunisian banks during the period 2005–2018. We use the two‐way cluster regression proposed by Petersen. This approach corrects for the unobserved firm effect (time‐series dependence) and time effect (cross‐sectional dependence). It gives robust standard errors adjusted for heteroscedasticity, serial correlation, and cross‐sectional correlation. Our results support a positive relationship between gender diversity and banks’ performance measured by ROA and ROE, while women board members are associated with more default risk measured by Z‐score. Our results remain robust to various measures of gender diversity, banks’ performance and risk. The findings contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence from Tunisia, an African emerging economy, where the examination of the role of board gender diversity on bank governance is unexplored.

Suggested Citation

  • Hidaya Othmani, 2021. "Does board gender diversity matter in the banking sector? Evidence from Tunisia," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 33(1), pages 14-24, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:afrdev:v:33:y:2021:i:1:p:14-24
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8268.12487
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    4. Aminat Olayinka Olohunlana & Ngozi Bosede Adeleye & Somod Dapo Olohunlana & Hauwah K. K. AbdulKareem, 2022. "Gender heterogeneity and microfinance sustainability in Sub‐Saharan Africa," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(2), pages 232-243, June.

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