Equal opportunity? Gender gaps in CEO appointments and executive pay

Arbeitspapier

This paper uses exceptionally rich data on Swedish corporate executives and their personal characteristics to study gender gaps in CEO appointments and pay. Both gaps are sizeable: 18% for CEO appointments and 27% for pay. At most one-eight of the gaps can be attributed to observable gender differences in executives' and their firms' characteristics. Further tests suggest that unobservable gender differences in characteristics are unlikely to account for the remaining gaps. Instead, our results are consistent with the view that male and female executives sharing equal attributes neither have equal opportunities to reach the top, nor are they equally paid.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IFN Working Paper ; No. 1111

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Voting; Proxy Contests; Corporate Governance ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
• Subject: CEOs ; Compensation ; Discrimination ; Executives ; Gender differences

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Keloharju, Matti ; Knüpfer, Samuli ; Tåg, Joacim
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• (where): Stockholm
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/175048
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET