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Does Assigning More Women to Managerial Positions Enhance Firm Productivity? Evidence from Sweden

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We analyze whether gender composition at non-board managerial levels has any impact on firm productivity and other related outcomes in the service sector using a linked employer-employee dataset from Sweden. Exploiting within-firm variation, we apply a difference-in-differences propensity score matching method to address an endogeneity issue. Our results suggest no significant effects on productivity but significant positive effects on firms' growth in terms of value added and labor inputs when a firm “replaces” a male manager with a woman. We do not observe any impact when a firm “appoints” a woman instead of a man to a new managerial position.

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  • Sato, Yoshihiro & Ando, Michihito, 2017. "Does Assigning More Women to Managerial Positions Enhance Firm Productivity? Evidence from Sweden," EIJS Working Paper Series 242, Stockholm School of Economics, The European Institute of Japanese Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:eijswp:0242
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    Cited by:

    1. Barbara Biasi & Heather Sarsons, 2020. "Flexible Wages, Bargaining, and the Gender Gap," NBER Working Papers 27894, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender; Gender diversity; Firm productivity; Manager; Difference-in-differences matching; Propensity score matching;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J82 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Labor Force Composition

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