• The management teams of British firms with 20 or more employees appear to have a higher proportion of women than those of French firms.
• A higher proportion of women in firms and/or amongst their senior management is not associated with poorer economic and financial performance, whether in France or the UK.
• The precise links between the proportion of women in firms or their management teams and their economic performance are too weak to be detected using our data. However, the analysis suggests that these links are likely to be positive.
• There is a very strong positive correlation between the proportion of women in British firms and their social performance: a higher proportion of women goes hand in hand with a workforce that is happier at work, reports higher levels of satisfaction across numerous criteria, has greater trust in its leaders, and identifies more strongly with its firm.
• These relationships are largely driven by male employees, who appear to benefit more than female employees from the increased presence of women in their working environment. Women also feel more fulfilled in environments with a higher proportion of women (they trust their firm more and identify more strongly with it), but the relationship is less strong than for men. However, we do not find any significant correlations in the French data.
• These correlations generally hold up when more sophisticated statistical methods are used to identify a causal effect of gender diversity on social performance. The effects highlighted by causal analysis are, however, weaker. In particular, we observe a positive impact of the feminisation of firms on men’s trust in their managers and on the fact that they are less worried at work. The impact on job satisfaction is weaker. However, our data do not allow us to identify a positive link between feminisation and social performance in France.
• The link between the feminisation of senior management and the social performance of organisations in the United Kingdom, on the other hand, is slightly negative, particularly with regard to indicators of employees’ trust in their line managers and the quality of working relationships.
