Effect of board gender diversity on banks’ profitability in Nigeria

Board diversity is a corporate governance issue which has of late caught the concentration of policymakers, managers, directors, business owners, and the academic world. This study examines the effect of board gender diversity on profitability in Nigeria. Using correlational research design, the study randomly selected ten money deposit banks in Nigeria. Data were obtained from audited annual reports of the selected banks. Return on equity was used as a proxy for profitability (dependent variable); meanwhile, two indicators of gender diversity including: the presence of female in the board of directors and the proportion of female in the board of directors were used. Four control variables of: bank size, board size, loan to total assets and age of bank were incorporated into the model, in line with previous studies. The results of the regression analysis revealed that the presence of female director on the board has a positive but insignificant relationship with banks’ profitability. Similarly, the result shows that the proportion of female in the board of directors has a positive but insignificant relationship with profitability in Nigeria. Furthermore, positive relationship is observed between profitability and each of: bank size, board size, loan to total assets and bank age.