Gender Diversity in the Corporate Boardroom: Do Women Affect Risk?

This paper provides a brief overall view of the previous research carried out on gender diversity and shows how, against all expectations, the presence of women in the boardrooms cannot affect firms’ leverage and total risk. We draw on theories from psychological, social and economic issues about groups and gender diversity within groups, and carry out a cross-country analysis using data of listed companies for Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Norway. We argue that differences are factitious to justify discrimination or unpopular strategic decisions; despite this, they seem to drive to a larger literature than that which exists.