Do gender board quotas matter for working mothers? Evidence from state-owned firms in Italy

In developed countries, the absence of family friendly workplace policies is seen as an important driver of low fertility rates. In this paper we examine whether the introduction of gender quota on boards of directors indirectly lead to an increase in fertility and improvements of careers of young mothers working in companies subject to the quota. We exploit the introduction of an Italian law mandating a strict gender quota on the boards of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in 2013 and leverage matched administrative data on firms and employees from 2008 to 2019. Using a triple-difference-in-differences design, we show that the law substantially increased female board representation. But we find no significant effects on fertility proxied by mandatory maternity leaves, post-childbirth retention, parental leave uptake, or wage penalties following maternity. Overall, the results suggest that while gender quotas successfully diversify leadership, they do not, in isolation, transform workplace practices or mitigate structural disadvantages faced by working mothers.