We study how changes in female representation at the top of a firm’s organisation affect gender-specific outcomes across hierarchies within firms. We start by developing a theoretical model of a hierarchical firm, where gender representation in top organisational layers can affect gender-specific hiring and promotion probabilities at lower layers. We then exploit a recent French reform that imposed gender representation quotas in the boards of directors and test the model’s predictions in the data. Our empirical results show that the reform was successful in reducing gender wage and representation gaps at the upper layers of the firm, but not at lower firm layers. A Panel VAR analysis confirms that the trickle-down effects of this policy were limited and suggests that quotas targeting middle management, rather than corporate boards, may have a more widespread effect across the firm.

我们研究了公司组织高层女性代表的变化如何影响公司内部不同层级的性别特定结果。我们首先开发一个分层公司的理论模型，其中高层组织层的性别代表性会影响较低层的特定性别招聘和晋升概率。然后，我们利用最近的法国改革，在董事会中强加性别代表配额，并在数据中测试模型的预测。我们的实证结果表明，改革成功地减少了公司高层的性别工资和代表差距，但在较低的公司层则不然。小组 VAR 分析证实该政策的涓滴效应是有限的，并表明配额针对中层管理人员，而不是公司董事会，