Research examining gender and corporate boards has explored how women's representation impacts firm strategy and policy, particularly around corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues related to communities and other relevant stakeholders, the environment, and diversity and equity initiatives. However, fewer studies have examined how women's representation on boards affects gender inequality in firms. The studies that have been conducted generally focus on gender board diversity and the appointment of women executives. Yet, prior research has not sufficiently examined women's board representation and gender equality below executive level. Does women's representation have broader effects on gender equity beyond top leadership? And if so, is there a critical mass effect? In this article, we examine the relationship between women's board representation and non-managerial gender segregation. Gender segregation is an ideal measure of gender equality given that it captures the evenness of the distribution of women and men across jobs within workplaces and its well-known relationship to gender disparities in earnings and other job rewards. Drawing on Australian organization data (2014–2019) we find that the contemporaneous relationship between women's board representation and gender segregation is nonsignificant, but becomes significant and increases in magnitude with 1, 2, and 3-year lags. Our critical mass analysis suggests that having one woman on a board may not be enough to promote change but rather two or more women directors, or holding 20% or more board seats, appears to be more effective in reducing gender segregation. These findings demonstrate that the appointment of more women to corporate boards has broader effects on workplace gender equity beyond top leadership teams.

中文翻译：

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女性董事会代表是否会影响非管理层性别不平等？

研究性别和公司董事会探讨了女性代表如何影响公司战略和政策，特别是围绕与社区和其他相关利益相关者、环境以及多样性和公平倡议相关的企业社会责任 (CSR) 问题。然而，很少有研究探讨女性在董事会中的代表如何影响公司中的性别不平等。已进行的研究通常侧重于性别董事会多元化和女性高管的任命。然而，先前的研究并没有充分研究女性董事会代表和行政级别以下的性别平等。女性代表是否对高层领导以外的性别平等产生更广泛的影响？如果是这样，是否存在临界质量效应？在本文中，我们研究了女性董事会代表与非管理层性别隔离之间的关系。性别隔离是衡量性别平等的理想措施，因为它反映了工作场所内男女在不同工作岗位上的分布均匀性，以及它与收入和其他工作奖励方面的性别差异众所周知的关系。利用澳大利亚组织数据（2014-2019 年），我们发现女性董事会代表与性别隔离之间的同期关系不显着，但随着 1、2 和 3 年的滞后变得显着并增加幅度。我们的临界质量分析表明，董事会只有一名女性可能不足以促进变革，但两名或更多女性董事，或持有 20% 或更多董事会席位，似乎更有效地减少了性别隔离。