Influence of Women in Leadership on Gender-Equality, Work–Life, and Domestic Violence Coping Practices: The Role of Chief Executive Officer Gender

Abstract

Achieving gender equality continues to pose a persistent challenge in contemporary workplaces, as indicated by the slow rate of progress and predictions that achieving gender equality may take a century. Responding to calls for a deeper understanding of how women's leadership influences organizational outcomes, we draw on social role theory to examine the relationship between women in senior leadership and gender equality management systems (GEMS), which is a comprehensive “bundle” of gender-equality, work–life, and domestic violence coping practices, in the context of the gender of chief executive officers (CEOs). Utilizing a large-scale, longitudinal dataset of 6620 Australian organizations spanning 7 years, our panel analyses reveal that having women in senior leadership positively influences work–life practices and domestic violence coping practices. The results also indicate that women in leadership have a positive impact on gender-equality practices when organizations are led by a female CEO. By showing how women in senior leadership and a supportive female CEO jointly foster broader adoption of GEMS, we extend and refine social role theory. Our findings also provide robust evidence, drawn from a wide range of organizations, that the leadership of women at multiple levels plays a pivotal role in accelerating progress toward workplace gender equality.