IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/diw/diwdeb/2015-40-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards a Gender Quota

Author

Listed:
  • Norma Schmitt

Abstract

In 2016, a fixed gender quota will come into force in Germany, affecting the supervisory boards of listed companies that also have employee representation (full codetermination).1 By as early as September 30, 2015, however, all companies will be obliged to set a self-imposed target quota – even companies that meet just one of these criteria; i.e., either listed or subject to codetermination. A variety of concerns have been expressed about the implementation of this law, including fears that the quota will impair company performance and the quality of the talent pool, or the belief that it discriminates against men and stigmatizes women. The present article examines these key criticisms on the basis of research findings to date. In conclusion, the advantages of a gender quota should allay these concerns since, in the long term, it contributes to dismantling gender stereotypes and consequently also mitigates the negative impact these stereotypes have on the selection of the best candidates for senior management positions.

Suggested Citation

  • Norma Schmitt, 2015. "Towards a Gender Quota," DIW Economic Bulletin, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 5(40), pages 527-536.
  • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwdeb:2015-40-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.514766.de/diw_econ_bull_2015-40-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Balasubramanian, Pooja & Ibanez, Marcela & Khan, Sarah & Sahoo, Soham, 2024. "Does women's economic empowerment promote human development in low- and middle-income countries? A meta-analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    2. Kim, Jennifer Y. & Brockner, Joel & Block, Caryn J., 2022. "Tailoring the intervention to the self: Congruence between self-affirmation and self-construal mitigates the gender gap in quantitative performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender; quota; stereotypes; discrimination; board diversity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwdeb:2015-40-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.