Gender diversity and financial performance in Mexican stock companies

Abstract

since profit maximization is the main objective of private companies, it is important to know how the behavior of decision-making agents can influence the performance of the company. The objective of this document is to estimate if gender diversity on the board of directors has any effect on the financial performance of Mexican stock companies. We use a sample of Mexican non-financial companies listed in the Mexican Stock Exchange and that are part of the IPC Index, during the 2011-2021 period. Four regression models were used: panel data regression, OLS2S regression, GMM system, and DiD. Results show that the presence of only one woman on the board of directors had a negative effect on the ROA of companies and that the recommendation for female inclusion on boards had an effect on the presence of women on the boards of directors. These results support the Critical Mass Theory that in biased groups women are symbolic, and their presence has negative or no effect. In order to have an effect, the number of women on the board of directors must increase.