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.