Tokenism in Gender Diversity among Board of Directors

Kan Nakajima, Yoko Shirasu and Eiji Kodera

No e201, Working Papers from Tokyo Center for Economic Research

Abstract: This study examines the existence of tokenism in Japanese companies after the implementation of corporate governance reforms. We focus on the appointment of female outside directors. The existence of tokenism in corporate boards is an important issue for companies worldwide because it deals with gender diversity in the appointment of board members. Following the Abenomics policy of empowering women, Japan introduced ``Japan's Corporate Governance Code'' (the Code), which included board reforms such as appointing at least two outside directors. Using a quasi-natural experiment, we examine whether tokenism occurs in Japan, a country with a low female participation level in business. Empirical analysis reveals the occurrence of tokenism at the start of the Code¡Çs introduction. Companies appoint two outside directors to meet the formal requirements of the Code. They appoint a male outside director first and a female director later as a token. However, tokenism is not observed when busy female directors with a lot of experience are appointed to the board because they presumably have the expertise and skill.

Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2024-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn, nep-gen and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.tcer.or.jp/wp/pdf/e201.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e201

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Tokyo Center for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().