Sisterhood in COVID-19’s she-cession: Does stronger female representation mean weaker female discrimination?

Abstract

Purpose: Gender equality is an important issue, targeted all around the world, see for example the Gender Equality Strategy articulated by the European Union. These goals were hindered by COVID-19, which caused a well-documented she-cession: females were hit harder than males. Thispaper shows that a “sisterhood behaviour” can mitigate the effects of the she-cession: female decision makers were more likely to favour other females in recruitment and retention. Design/methodology/approach: Motivated by theories from psychology and industrial demography, we hypothesise a so-called sisterhood effect, or homophily: female decision makers are more likely to favour other females in recruitment and retention. We use firm-level survey data from 19 European countries collected before and during the first wave of the COVID-pandemic and we apply a differencein-differences methodology to test the hypothesised sisterhood behaviour. Findings: Our study finds that in firms where the top manager was a woman, gender discrimination was less likely or even not at all presented, that is, COVID-19 did not decrease the proportion of female employees. Originality/value: To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to analyse the existence of the theories mentioned before in a manager – employee relationship using firm-level data from the COVID-19 period. Practical implications: The results suggest that promoting gender equality in leadership dimensions can also moderate discrimination at the level of the employees. So, in a wider context: gender equality goals are interrelated.