An Empirical Analysis About The Influence Of Female Directors On Commercial Banks Performance

In recent years, as gender equality is growing, female participation in the company management is higher and higher. The influence of female managers in corporation governance has received extensive attention from all walks of life. There are a lot of studies about female directors and performance abroad, and some progress has been made. However, the study on female directors started until 2005 in China. The scholars who focus on this aspect are few, and the people who use the native data to carry out empirical research are even less, and the financial industry are excluded. Due to the economic function and the special role, commercial banks is different from other industries. Therefore, the conclusions of the previous studies are suitable for commercial banks also need to be further verified.Firstly, this paper reviews some related scholars’researches about female directors and commercial banks in the aspects of the status of female directors, the relationship between female and performance and board governance. Then, through the theoretical analysis, the paper explains why the board of the bank should bring in females. Next, based on the theoretical analysis above, this paper selects the panel data of China’s 37 commercial banks from 2007 to 2014 as the research object. Return on assets and earnings per share compose the variable composition; the female directors virtual variables, ratio, average education level, social capital and other female directors characteristic elements compose the independent variables; Bank size, scale of the board, ownership concentration, non-performing loan ratio, capital adequacy ratio compose the control variables. Thus, this paper carries on the panel data of multiple regression analysis, including sample selection, hypothesis, variable definition, model design, descriptive statistics analysis, correlation analysis, collinearity test, stability analysis, Hausman test and multiple regression analysis, and puts forward corresponding suggestions on the research results. Finally, this paper compares the similarities and differences of how the characteristics of female directors and bank performance affect each other between the State-owned commercial banks, joint-stock commercial banks, city commercial banks.The results show that:(1) In the commercial banks of China, although the representation status of female directors has presented upward trend, the average is still in a very low level; The average education level and the average social capital of female directors are generally in a good condition, which indicates that most female directors of commercial banks in China have completed the undergraduate education, and they not only don’t work for one company, but also have abundant working experience and social resources. (2) The female directors virtual variables does not have a significant impact on performance of commercial banks; however, the proportion of female directors and commercial bank performance shows a significant negative correlation, and female directors’education background and social capital can weaken this negative relationship. At the same time, compared with the social capital, the education level of female directors is more prominent to the positive effect of bank performance. (3) The relationship between female directors and bank performance are different in the different commercial banks. The proportion of female directors have more apparent negative effect on joint-stock commercial banks. While the positive moderating effect of average education level is more obvious in the city commercial banks, and the positive moderating effect of social capital is more obvious in the joint-stock commercial banks. On the whole, the influence of female directors’characteristics is the most significant in the city commercial banks.