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OECD Productivity Working Papers

The OECD Productivity Papers are associated with the Global Forum on Productivity that provides a forum for mutual exchange of information and fosters international co-operation between public bodies with responsibility for promoting productivity-enhancing policies, including in undertaking joint policy analysis. It offers a platform for exchanging views, experiences and information, institutional and governance arrangements and government structures, with a view towards developing better policies. The Forum extends existing work in the OECD through a well-prioritised and coherent stream of analytical work serving the policy research needs of participants on the drivers of productivity growth.

English

Gender diversity in senior management and firm productivity

Evidence from nine OECD countries

This paper investigates the link between gender diversity in senior management and firm-level productivity. For this purpose, it constructs a novel cross-country dataset with information on firms’ senior management group and other firm characteristics, covering both publicly listed and unlisted firms in manufacturing and non-financial market services across nine OECD countries. The main result from the analysis is that productivity gains from increasing gender diversity in senior management are highest among firms with low initial diversity. Increasing the female share to the sample average of 20% in firms with initially lower shares would increase aggregate productivity by around 0.6%. This suggests that improving women’s access to senior management positions matters not only for equity but could yield significant productivity gains.

English

Keywords: gender diversity, total factor productivity, senior management
JEL: O47: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity / Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence; M14: Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics / Business Administration / Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility; J16: Labor and Demographic Economics / Demographic Economics / Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
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