Gender diversity and financial performance of the stock exchange listed companies

Abstract

Tunisia is considered one of the first Arab Muslim countries to have the freedom of women and their participation in the economic sphere. Despite these advancements in women’s freedom, Tunisia still has a few women in positions of responsibility in the business. Our reflection on gender diversity will, therefore, be studied from the angle of the contribution of women to the performance of the company. Our research uses different gender diversity proxies such as the percentage of women on the board, a binary variable, and two additional indices of the diversity the Blau and Shannon indices. In order to properly study this impact, we have mainly used bivariate analysis by studying the association between endogenous and explanatory variables and multivariate analysis by applying double least square regression (2SLS). Using the panel data methodology and controlling for endogeneity, the results show that gender diversity on the board of directors does not have an impact on the performance of listed companies measured by Tobin’s Q. However, if critical mass is reached, the impact on gender diversity becomes positive and significant.