ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the influence of the proportion of women on corporate boards in Spanish listed firms. The implementation of gender equality policies in companies with more than 250 workers has been pretty successful with 3,397 corporations having one and 1,895 firms with at least a woman on the corporate board. Female board members are usually independent members or proprietary. The truth is that more women are joining Spanish corporate boards but more men are joining them also, so the relative female presence has not increased that much. The chapter evaluates the theoretical and empirical motivation for dealing with this issue of diversity in corporate governance. The presence of women in top management positions in still low in many countries, though it has been increasing over time. In countries such as Sweden or Norway the gender composition of boards is regulated by law in order to improve equal opportunities.
