Are shareholders gender neutral? Evidence from say on pay

Abstract

This study investigates whether gender pay inequality in the top management team, measured by gender pay slice (GPS), is a factor in Say on Pay (SoP) voting as required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Since CEOs are known to play a distinct role in SoP voting, we treat CEOs separately and define GPS as the fraction of total non-CEO executive compensation captured by females. Controlling for numerous factors including CEO pay and CEO gender, ISS recommendations, pay composition, firm performance, and other firm characteristics, we find robust evidence of a negative relation between non-CEO GPS and SoP votes, but this gender-based difference in SoP voting does not extend to the CEO. Taken together, our findings imply that gender equality in terms of SoP voting is still an issue for female executives at the sub-top level.