Female leaders and gender gaps within the firm: Evidence from three Sub‐Saharan African countries

• Author: Giulia La Mattina,Gabriel Picone,Alban Ahoure,Jose Carlos Kimou
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12403
• Published date: 01 November 2018

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Female leaders and gender gaps within the firm:

Evidence from three Sub-Saharan African countries

Giulia La Mattina

1

|

Gabriel Picone

1

|

Alban Ahoure

2

|

Jose Carlos Kimou

2

1

University of South Florida, Tampa,

Florida

2

Universit

eF



elix Houphou€

et-Boigny de

Cocody, Abidjan, C^

ote d’Ivoire

Correspondence

Giulia La Mattina, Department of

Economics, University of South Florida,

4202 E. Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL

33620.

Email: glamattina@usf.edu

Funding Information

This project was funded by

UNU-WIDER.

Abstract

We study the association between the gender of the high-

est-ranking manager (the CEO) and gender differences in

employees’outcomes using detailed linked employer–em-

ployee data from the formal sector in Cameroon, C^

ote

d’Ivoire, and Senegal. Our empirical strategy relies on the

inclusion of firm fixed effects and workers’characteris-

tics. Our results point toward a negative correlation

between female CEOs and the relative wages and job sat-

isfaction of female employees. However, female employ-

ees working under a female CEO who owns the firm are

not paid less than their male colleagues.

1

|

INTRODUCTION

Although women’s education and labor force participation have increased globally in recent dec-

ades, there are still differences in women’s earnings vs. men. In Sub-Saharan African countries,

women earn between 6 and 30 percent less than men, even though women’s labor force participa-

tion rate is above 60 percent (

~

Nopo, Daza, & Ramos, 2011; World Bank, 2012). Gender differ-

ences in the labor market may extend beyond earnings to other dimensions, including job

satisfaction and opportunities for promotion (Clark, 1997; Kunze & Miller, 2014). Underst anding

the sources of gender differences in the labor market is necessary to improve women’s access to

income, which has been linked to children’s outcomes (Duflo, 2000; Lundberg, Pollak, & Wales,

1997; Thomas, 1990).

This paper examines gender differences in wages, hours, and job satisfaction using linked

employer–employee data from three French-speaking countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. We focus

on the formal sector, where more than half of the workers have at least completed secondary

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

©2018 UNU-WIDER. Review of Development Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12403

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode Rev Dev Econ. 2018;22:1432–1460.

education, and women make up about 30 percent of the labor force. Since women who work in

the formal sector are likely positively selected, we expect a smaller earnings gap than in the infor-

mal sector (Arbache, Filipiak, & Kolev, 2010). Indeed, we observe that on average women work

fewer hours and earn lower monthly income than men, but women and men receive similar wages

(Table 2). Additionally, female employees are more satisfied with their job and salary than men.

1

However, the observed unconditional gender parity in wages may mask differences in the relative

performance of male and female employees across firms.

We posit that role models and mentors may be a factor affecting women’s progress in the labor

market and test whether the gender of the highest-ranking manager (chief executive officer or

CEO) is correlated with gender gaps within the firm.

2

The expected impact of female managers on

the performance of subordinated female workers is a priori ambiguous. On the one hand, if women

discriminated less against female workers or were more willing to mentor female employees,

female managers could help to reduce gender gaps (Aigner & Cain, 1977; Athey, Avery, & Zem-

sky, 2000). Female role models and mentors may be especially important in developing countries,

where gender inequalities are pronounced and discriminatory gender norms are still common.

3

On

the other hand, female managers may act as “queen bees”and harm the careers of their female

employees (Staines, Tavris, & Jayaratne, 1974).

The linked employer–employee survey used in this study provides detailed information on

workers, CEOs, and firms’characteristics, which allows us to study the impact of the CEO’s gen-

der beyond the wage gap and look at gender differences in hours worked, earnings, and job satis-

faction. Our empirical strategy rests on estimating the association between the CEO’s gender and

gender gaps within the firm by controlling for several characteristics of the firm and the employee

to reduce omitted variable bias. In some specifications, we include firm fixed effects in the regres-

sion to hold constant unobservable firm characteristics that may affect both the gender of the CEO

and the labor outcomes of female employees.

The results are heterogeneous across countries, but overall point toward a small negati ve associ-

ation between female CEOs and the relative outcomes of female employees. Female CEOs are

associated with a larger gender gap in wages, job satisfaction, and salary satisfaction, and a smaller

gender gap in hours worked. These results are robust to the inclusion of firm fixed effects and to

the exclusion of firms in which the CEO has been in his/her position for less than 2 years, which

helps to reduce concerns about reverse causality. All in all, the results provide support for the

“queen bee”syndrome. However, when we look at the interaction between working under a female

CEO and an indicator for the CEO being the owner of the firm, we find that the results are more

nuanced. In the pooled sample, female employees working under female CEOs who own the firm

are not paid less than their male colleagues. We speculate that when female CEOs do not have

enough power within the firm, they may not be able to improve the relative performance of female

employees.

Our paper contributes to the understanding of gender differences in the labor market of Camer-

oon, C^

ote d’Ivoire, and Senegal. The three countries are heterogeneous in terms of recent eco-

nomic performance, female education and labor force participation, but they all have relatively low

gender equality compared with other countries in Africa (African Development Bank Group,

2015).

4

Quantitative research on the formal sector in Sub-Saharan Africa is scant, possibly

because the formal sector is limited and provides work opportunities to a small fraction of the pop-

ulation (International Monetary Fund, 2017). Qualitative research is consistent with our results: For

instance, Ngo Essounga (2016) argues that female managers in large corporations in Cameroon are

not more likely to promote women than male managers. We start filling the vacuum in quantitative

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