Gender Diversity in Corporate Boards: Evidence from Nigerian Quoted Companies

Gender inequality in corporate boards has resulted in poor knowledge production in Nigerian companies. This paper examined gender diversity on corporate boards in Nigerian quoted companies. 50 companies from 8 sectors were sampled. Content analysis was used to obtain data from the published financial statements of the companies for the year 2022. Data were obtained on the total number of directors, total number of female directors, chairperson female director, female managing director, percentage of women director to the total number directors and thus was used in the ranking according to sectors. Findings show that the conglomerate sector was the highest ranked (20.45%) and has the 1st position, followed by the ICT sector (19.04%), having the 2nd position and the 3rd position by the oil and gas sector, having 17.28%. On the other hand, natural gas took the last (8th) position having 9.52%, followed by the utility sector which has 11.11% and was ranked 7th and finally the construction/real estate sector took the 6th position having 13.21% of percentage of female directors to total directors. The result shows chairperson female director as 2% only in the conglomerate sector, implying only one chairperson female director in the entire sector. These findings are evidence of inequality in gender diversity in corporate board and indicate low participation of women in knowledge production in Nigerian quoted companies. The study concludes that there are gender challenges in knowledge production in Nigerian corporate boards, which need to be countered by introducing gender quota in corporate boards.