Golf Buddies and Board Diversity

Abstract

We study the participation of women in golf, a predominately male social activity, and its influence on their likelihood of serving on a board of directors. Exploiting a novel dataset of all golf games in Singapore, we find that woman golfers enjoy a 54% higher likelihood of serving on a board relative to male golfers. A woman's probability of serving on the board in a large firm or in a predominately male industry increases by 117% to 125% when she plays golf. In summary, our results suggest that "playing the boys game" facilitates women's directorships in publicly-traded firms.

Keywords: Board of Directors, Golf, Gender, Board Diversity