Gender and risk – do public listing and private ownership bank matter?

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to empirically test the influence of board member gender on insolvency risk in a two-tier system.

Design/methodology/approach

This study considers 91 banks operating in Indonesia from 2009 to 2021. It uses a two-step system generalized moment method to analyze the data.

Findings

This study reports that appointing women to the board of commissioners and as directors reduces the insolvency risk. Women’s role in reducing risk is more effective in listed and private-owned banks (POB) than in others.

Practical implications

The presence of women in boardrooms is crucial for improving financial performance and reducing financial distress in banks, particularly listed and POB. The findings of this study are expected to provide insights into board selection and appointment.

Originality/value

The extant literature on the impact of appointing women to boards on bank risk lacks a consensus because of differences in proxies in measuring gender diversity (GD). This paper conducts scenarios using four GD proxies, namely, dummy, percentage of women, Blau index and Shannon index, and two insolvency risk proxies.

Citation

Mukhibad, H. (2025), "Gender and risk – do public listing and private ownership bank matter?", Gender in Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-12-2023-0455