Do gender board quotas matter for working mothers? Evidence from state-owned firms in Italy
Journal of Public Economics · 2025 · [{"name": "Agata Maida", "affiliation": []}, {"name": "Andrea Weber", "affiliation": []}]
中文摘要
在发达国家，缺乏家庭友好型工作场所政策被视为低生育率的重要驱动因素。本文考察董事会性别配额的引入是否会间接提高受配额约束企业中年轻母亲的生育率并改善其职业发展。我们利用意大利于2013年出台的一项法律，该法律对国有企业（SOE）董事会实行严格的性别配额，并使用2008—2019年企业与雇员相匹配的行政数据。采用三重差分设计，我们表明该法律大幅提高了女性在董事会中的代表比例。然而，我们未发现该法律对以强制性产假、产后留任、育儿假使用或生育后工资惩罚衡量的生育率具有显著影响。总体而言，结果表明，性别配额虽然成功促进了领导层的多元化，但其本身并不能改变工作场所惯例，也无法缓解职业母亲面临的结构性劣势。
Abstract
In developed countries, the absence of family friendly workplace policies is seen as an important driver of low fertility rates. In this paper we examine whether the introduction of gender quota on boards of directors indirectly lead to an increase in fertility and improvements of careers of young mothers working in companies subject to the quota. We exploit the introduction of an Italian law mandating a strict gender quota on the boards of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in 2013 and leverage matched administrative data on firms and employees from 2008 to 2019. Using a triple-difference-in-differences design, we show that the law substantially increased female board representation. But we find no significant effects on fertility proxied by mandatory maternity leaves, post-childbirth retention, parental leave uptake, or wage penalties following maternity. Overall, the results suggest that while gender quotas successfully diversify leadership, they do not, in isolation, transform workplace practices or mitigate structural disadvantages faced by working mothers.