The Impact of Female Leadership on LGBTQ-Supportive Policies

In the past two decades, gender inequality in c-suites has received a large amount of attention. Thus, the number of women in top management roles has increased substantially. However, the corporate sector has also neglected other marginalized groups, specifically, members of the LGBTQ community. These individuals are important employees and previous literature has established the benefits, both financial and otherwise, that the presence of LGBTQ supportive policies have on American corporations. In this paper, I examine if the presence of women CEOs influences the LGBTQ policies that are implemented in that firm. This will be analyzed using an OLS regression model. This paper finds that there is a positive and significant relationship between female leadership and LGBTQ-supportive policies. I further find that when a firm with a female CEO is headquartered in a state which voted democratic in the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections, the positive impact on LGBTQ-supportive policies increases. This shows that the political environment also impacts the decision making of firms