IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/afd/wpaper/2408.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender equality within boards: comparing quota and soft law

Author

Listed:
  • Sophie Harnay

    (EconomiX (UMR 7235), UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, CNRS, 200 avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre cedex, France)

  • Fabienne Llense

    (EconomiX (UMR 7235), UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, CNRS, 200 avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre cedex, France)

  • Antoine Rebérioux

    (LADYSS (UMR 7533), Université Paris Cité, 8 place Paul Ricoeur, 75013 Paris, France)

  • Gwenaël Roudaut

    (Département d’économie, Ecole Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau cedex, France)

Abstract

In 2011, Britain and France introduced affirmative action policies aiming at improving board gender mix in listed companies. While the reforms were similar in terms of target and timing, Britain opted for a ‘soft law’ (comply or explain) approach, while France enacted a mandatory quota. Using difference-in-differences analyses, we examine the differential impact of these two reforms on board composition and on women empowerment within boards. We first show that the quota has been associated with a more rapid adjustment of the gender mix without significant disruptive effects on board composition. However, we report that the quota has induced a more limited access of women to monitoring committees within boards, relative to soft law. As these committees are the most influential, this evidence shows that the quota came at a cost when considering within-board women’s influence.

Suggested Citation

  • Sophie Harnay & Fabienne Llense & Antoine Rebérioux & Gwenaël Roudaut, 2024. "Gender equality within boards: comparing quota and soft law," Working Papers AFED 24-08, Association Francaise d'Economie du Droit (AFED).
    • Handle: RePEc:afd:wpaper:2408
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://afed.ovh/RePEc/afd/wpaper/AFED-WP-24-08.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    company boards; gender inequalities; leadership positions; quota; soft law; board committees;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:afd:wpaper:2408. 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: AFED (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afeddea.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.