Gender Tokenism in Corporate Boardrooms in Europe

Abstract

We examine the tension between the diversity spillover and tokenism hypotheses using a novel and extensive dataset of nearly 6 million private corporations across 29 European countries from 1986 to 2020. The diversity spillover hypothesis suggests that appointing women to supervisory roles facilitates greater female representation in executive positions. In contrast, the tokenism hypothesis argues that appointing a single woman, without broader structural change, limits her agency. We operationalize tokenism as (i) firms appointing the first woman; and (ii) barriers to further rise in diversity. Our findings reveal that tokenism is highly persistent: firms that appoint a single woman rarely increase representation, and departing female board members are seldom replaced by other women, thus better understanding drivers of continuance of women in boardrooms is key to identifying effective policies of gender diversity. Contrary to the diversity spillover hypothesis, a higher number of women in supervisory roles correlates with lower female representation in executive positions. These results challenge the assumption that boardroom diversity naturally fosters broader inclusion and highlight the structural barriers to gender diversity in corporate leadership.