Synthetic Quotas: the effect of Gender Quota Laws in Different Cultures.

Gender quota laws aim to address the persistent underrepresentation of women in corporate decision-making. This study explores the effectiveness of gender quota laws on increasing women's representation on corporate boards (WoBs) by applying an innovative approach that combines the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) across multiple countries. Using data from European nations that introduced gender quotas in 2011, the study evaluates how legal stringency and cultural context shape the impact of these laws. By leveraging the cultural clusters framework Gupta et al., (2002) within the GLOBE project (2004) the study reveals distinct patterns: countries in the Latin Europe Cluster (e.g., France and Italy) exhibit significant and robust increases in WoBs, while those in the Germanic Europe Cluster (e.g., Belgium and the Netherlands) show weaker or inconsistent effects. Our findings reveal that stringent and well-defined gender quota laws yield more robust and significant results, particularly in the Latin Europe cluster, where cultural norms appear more aligned with affirmative policies. Conversely, less stringent laws and differing cultural constructs in the Germanic Europe cluster result in weaker and less consistent outcomes. highlighting the importance of both legal design and cultural context in driving gender equality policies. This research advances the literature on gender policies and gender equality by employing a novel, multi-country SCM framework and emphasizing the role of cultural alignment in policy effectiveness, offering valuable insights for the design of affirmative actions globally.