Research on the Status Quo and Influencing Factors of Gender Differences in the Executive Salaries of Listed Companies

Research on the Status Quo and Influencing Factors of Gender Differences in the Executive Salaries of Listed Companies

Liu Zhongwen, Wang Xiaoshuang, Wang Shukun
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/IJSDS.2021070103
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Abstract

Gender pay difference has always been a concern of scholars. Especially in recent years, experts have gradually shifted their research horizons to gender pay difference of executive compensation. This paper takes executive compensation of listed companies as the research object, uses fixed effect model to study gender pay difference of executive compensation of listed companies from 2016 to 2020, and finds that the gender gap of executive compensation of listed companies shows a trend of decreasing first and then increasing, and the proportion of female executives has an insignificant reverse effect. Private enterprises have a significant reverse effect on the gender gap of executive compensation. That is, there is a gender difference in executive compensation of listed companies, and the factor affecting the gender gap is the nature of the company, while the proportion of female executives are not regarded as the influencing factor.
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Executive and Executive Compensation

Senior executives are senior managers of a company who are responsible for formulating and implementing the company's strategy and have a significant impact on the company's profits, stock price, reputation and market positioning (Wang & Xu, 2015). The executives in this paper include chairman, vice chairman, director, supervisor, general manager, deputy general manager, director and CEO, etc. Executive compensation refers to a means to reduce or eliminate conflicts of interest or contradictions between executives and shareholders. The definition of executive compensation divides it into basic salary, bonus or allowance and stock options of executives (Zhang, 2014). The executive compensation discussed in this article is based on data from the CSMAR database and refers to the sum of base salary and bonus or allowance.

Ceiling Effect

According to the ceiling effect theory, the reason why women cannot be promoted or have few opportunities to be promoted to senior management positions is not because of their own ability or experience, but because of some special reasons, such as the gender based factors. There is an invisible barrier for women in promotion, or an invisible barrier in the company itself that affects women's promotion to senior management. Yang (2021) studied how women bypass the “ceiling effect” under the background of parallel ranks, and considered to deal with the “marginalization of positions” and “marginalization of power” of women in the public sector by bypassing the “glass ceiling” effect.

Sticky Floor Effect

The sticky floor theory holds that women who are discriminated against by the board of directors or executives of other companies are less likely to move to a less discriminating company because of the responsibilities of family life. If women have children, or if their spouse is also in a senior position, their turnover rate is lower than that of other male executives. Heilman (2012) and Smith et al. (2013) argue that if the company recognizes the existence of this phenomenon and recognizes women's ability to work, and there is no discrimination, it will not pay women the same salary as men or get the same promotion opportunities. Therefore, the ceiling theory and the sticky floor effect theory can explain the gender difference of executive compensation in listed companies.

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