Financial performance and diversity of boards: Companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange

Women still earn a lot less than men, despite decades of equal-pay laws, and they are not present on boards as often as men although their qualifications are similar. In the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the median wage of a woman working full-time is 85% that of a man. This is not, as many assume, because employers pay a woman less than they would have paid a man in her place. Data from 25 countries collected by Korn Ferry, a consultancy, show that women earn 98% as much as men who do the same job for the same employer. The real reason is twofold. Women outnumber men in positions with lower salaries and little chance of promotion. Men and women are segregated between occupations and industries; those where women predominate pay less.

Occupations dominated by women have lower status and pay. Primary teachers in the OECD earn 81% of the average for graduate jobs. Nurses earn less than police officers; cleaners less than caretakers. BHP Billiton, a mining company, has found that sites with more women are run more safely.

Just a fifth of senior executives in G7 countries are female. Across the European Union supervisors are more likely to be male, even when most of their underlings are female. Nearly 70% of working women in the EU are in occupations where at least 60% of workers are female. The top four jobs done by American women—teacher, nurse, secretary and health aide—are all at least 80% female[1].

The aim of the research is to find out if an increasing number of women on boards of the companies listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange influences the financial performance of these firms. Our investigation is the continuation of our earlier research. However, we employ new data sets from Notoria Serwis, an enterprise collecting data from the Polish financial market, and new methodology i.e. different types of taxonomic measures to evaluate the financial situation of the investigated companies and econometric models.

[1] https://www.economist.com/news/international/21729993-women-still-earn-lot-less-men-despite-decades-equal-pay-laws-why-gender