International differences in the CEO gender pay gap

Abstract Research question/issue This study examines (i) whether and to what extent differences in the level of compensation paid to men and women can be observed at the corporate executive (i.e., CEOs) level in an international setting and (ii) whether and how country‐level attitudes toward gender equality help explain the heterogeneity in the CEO gender pay gap observed across countries. Research findings/insights Using executive compensation data from 27 countries over the 2001–2016 period, this study documents a 3.3% average difference in the level of executive compensation between male and female CEOs in countries around the world. The results further indicate that firms that transition from a male to a female CEO tend to have a significantly lower level of compensation. These results are robust when controlling for an array of key CEO attributes including education, age, and work experience and when US firms are excluded from the sample. Our findings also suggest that attitudes related to gender equality across countries can be an important factor explaining the CEO gender pay gap observed in our study. Theoretical/academic implications The results of our study suggest the existence of a CEO gender pay gap at the international level. Specifically, our study suggests that the difference in pay between men and women, which is well documented in the literature of many countries, not only applies to regular employees in an economy but can also be generalized to those who work at the chief executive level. More importantly, our study suggests that a country's institutional environment vis‐à‐vis gender equality can contribute to the gender pay differences observed in various countries around the world. Practitioner/policy implications We provide evidence supporting the existence of a gender pay gap using executive compensation data at the CEO level. We further show that country‐level institutional characteristics related to gender equality partly contribute to gender pay differences between male and female CEOs across countries. Thus, the findings of our study provide new insights into the potential determinants of executive compensation (i.e., CEO gender and country‐level gender equality) and are valuable to policymakers in proposing legislative changes to reduce the gender pay gap.