How Central Are Women in Central Banks?

The chapter deals with gender issues in Central Banks (CBs). Here, discrimination against women and obstacles to their careers seem even more pronounced than in supervised financial intermediaries. The chapter first discusses the causes of this accentuated difficulty for women and then reviews the scarce literature on the pattern of appointments and promotions of women on CB boards, on the relations between gender and monetary policy decisions, and on the influence exerted by women on the stability of the financial system and the quality of supervision. The focus then shifts to the strengthening of the gender parity policy by the European Central Bank (marked by the setting of targets for the recruitment and promotion of women) and to women governors. In regard to the latter, we attempt to outline a detailed picture of the women who have held such positions in CBs around the world, highlighting both how rare they still are and how patterns change across countries. Finally, the chapter offers a picture of gender policies followed by the EU28 CBs based on responses provided by banks to our survey or on information retrieved from the banks’ documents, especially their annual reports.