Women may be climbing on board, but not in first class: A long-term study of the factors affecting women’s board participation in Argentina and Chile (1923–2010)

The literature about women’s roles in corporate structure does not provide clear, systemic, integrative answers to fundamental questions such as which factors shape board gender composition and women’s roles in business and corporate networks? With the intention to help overcome this gap in the literature, this paper examines the dynamics of women’s access to corporate boards for more than a century in Argentina and Chile. It focuses on critical factors that affect the fluctuating, nonlinear recruitment patterns that have led to the incorporation of women in these two countries during the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. We analyse a diverse range of institutional, organisational, and individual factors that have opened women’s access to the boards of Argentina’s and Chile’s largest corporations. The study establishes that Argentina has progressed into a more fragmented corporate network than Chile, which may have facilitated women’s access to boards. However, and even if, little by little, a combination of factors has opened some space for women in the corporate power elite, they primarily remain in marginalised positions in networks. Taken together, these findings show that it is important to consider not only the number and the timing but also the nature of women’s integration into corporate boards and high-ranking positions. This issue is particularly relevant because Argentina and Chile have not enacted regulations to mandate minimum levels of board diversity during the period under analysis.