The Impact of Board Gender Diversity on Dividend Policies: Evidence from Swedish Listed Firms

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between board gender diversity and dividend payments. The research is conducted using 3,763 observations of firms listed on the Swedish regulated markets between 2003 and 2022. We employ fixed effects OLS regressions and find evidence that firms with a higher fraction of female directors in their boards exhibit higher dividend payments. Our results suggest that the positive impact of independent female board directors is stronger than that of executive female board directors. Moreover, the positive effect on dividend payments is most Keywords prominent for firms with three or more female board directors, constituting a critical mass. The results show robustness when tested with instrumental variable regressions, lagged independent variable regressions, and propensity score matching. We conclude that increased board gender diversity can be an effective monitoring tool to mitigate agency problems and promote shareholder interests.