Variables Influencing the Gender Composition of Boards: The Spanish Evidence

This article studies the determining factors of gender composition of the boards of large Spanish companies and presents a method to predict it. For this purpose, a multivariate analysis is run to identify the differences in the characteristics between firms without female directors and firms with two or more female directors or one female director if she is the chief executive officer (CEO) or chair. This research analyzes women's participation on Spanish boards in a period prior to the introduction of voluntary measures to boost female participation, so its results are not influenced by that development.