Board Gender Diversity and Performance of Listed Deposit Banks in Nigeria

Abstract

Gender diversity is becoming an issue for boards of companies, regulators, and investors worldwide. Nigeria is not an exception. It is assumed that board gender diversity significantly improves corporate governance and financial performance. Recently, women in both senate and House of representative met and agreed to pursue 35% appointment in public appointments. The women eventually sent a representation to discuss this with President Mohammadu Buhari. This study's main objective is to examine the relationship between gender diversity and quoted deposit money banks' performance in Nigeria using descriptive statistics, trend, and correlation analysis. Data was collected through the websites of 13 publicly quoted banks on the Nigerian stock exchange. Gender of directors was sieved by using the biography section of Annual report, use of gender-specific pronouns 'she,' the third is the usage of address 'Mr' and 'Mrs' while the use of the first name was also used to determine the Gender. Data were analysed by using SPSS. Trend analysis of each bank's percentage of female board members between 2015 and 2019 shows an unstable trend. The rate at which the female Gender occupies the Board in the banks does not appear to have a specific pattern to make inferences. It also lacks a strong relationship between the number of female board members and banks' performance. There is a weak negative relationship between earnings per share and female board members' percentage. It can be concluded that the inclusion of women on the Board of a company does not necessarily translate into an improvement in a company's financial performance.