DP15552 The Gender Gap Among Top Business Executives

Author(s):	Wolfgang Keller, Teresa Molina, Will Olney
Publication Date:	December 2020
Keyword(s):	Corporate culture, Executive compensation, Gender pay gap, Women
JEL(s):	F16, J16, J24, J33
Programme Areas:	Labour Economics, Financial Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=15552

This paper examines gender differences among top business executives using a large executive-employer matched data set spanning the last quarter century. Female executives make up 6.2% of the sample and we find they exhibit more labor market churning - both higher entry and higher exit rates. Unconditionally, women earn 26% less than men, which decreases to 7.9% once executive characteristics, firm characteristics, and in particular job title are accounted for. The paper explores the extent to which firm-level temporal flexibility and corporate culture can explain these gender differences. Although we find that women tend to select into firms with temporal flexibility and a female-friendly corporate culture, there is no evidence that this sorting drives the gender pay gap. However, we do find evidence that corporate culture affects pay gaps within firms: the within-firm gender pay gap disappears entirely at female-friendly firms. Overall, while both corporate culture and flexibility affect the female share of employment, only corporate culture influences the gender pay gap.