Does the gender of mutual fund managers matter? Empirical evidence of gender biases in the Nordics

Abstract

This study examines the effect of genders of single-managed equity mutual fund managers on fund flows in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark from 2008 to 2021. Using monthly data of actively managed funds, the question is approached with a pooled OLS regression to investigate whether mutual fund investors are subject to gender discrimination.

A previous study in the U.S. suggests that individually managed funds by female fund managers have lower fund flows than male fund managers due to gender discrimination by mutual fund investors (Niessen-Ruenzi and Ruenzia 2019). In line with previous findings, the main findings of this study suggest that female fund managers have significantly lower monthly fund flows compared to male managers in an analysis conducted on samples with similar attributes.

In addition, this study aims to find potential rationale for the findings by including investment behaviour, performance, and flow-performance relationship analyses. Considering everything, the overall conclusion of this study is that Nordic female fund managers face irrational discrimination by mutual fund investors, which could provide a customer-based explanation for the low representation of female fund managers.