期刊名称：Discussion Papers / Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration
印刷版ISSN：0804-6824
出版年度：2014
卷号：2014
出版社：Bergen
摘要：In late 2003, Norway passed a law mandating 40 percent representation of each gender on theboard of publicly limited liability companies. The primary objective of this reform was toincrease the representation of women in top positions in the corporate sector and decrease genderdisparity in earnings within that sector. We document that the newly (post-reform) appointedfemale board members were observably more qualified than their female predecessors, and thatthe gender gap in earnings within boards fell substantially. While the reform may have improvedthe representation of female employees at the very top of the earnings distribution (top 5 highestearners) within firms that were mandated to increase female participation on their board, there isno evidence that these gains at the very top trickled-down. Moreover the reform had no obviousimpact on highly qualified women whose qualifications mirror those of board members but whowere not appointed to boards. We observe no statistically significant change in the gender wagegaps or in female representation in top positions, although standard errors are large enough thatwe cannot rule economically meaningful gains. Finally, there is little evidence that the reformaffected the decisions of women more generally; it was not accompanied by any change in femaleenrollment in business education programs, or a convergence in earnings trajectories betweenrecent male and female graduates of such programs. While young women preparing for a careerin business report being aware of the reform and expect their earnings and promotion chances tobenefit from it, the reform did not affect their fertility and marital plans. Overall, in the short runthe reform had very little discernible impact on women in business beyond its direct effect on thenewly appointed female board members.
