Women's quotas boost work engagement – if employees are aware of them

Women’s quotas can have an impact beyond simply ensuring a more balanced distribution of leadership positions. A study by researchers at the University of Mannheim and the Rotterdam School of Management shows that they can also boost employee engagement—but only if employees are aware of the measures and perceive them as a reflection of the company’s values.

A lot of research has focused on quotas’ effects at the organisational level, such as board composition, candidate qualifications, and firm performance. But not much research has been done into how they affect the general workforce, even though one of the goals of such quotas is to promote gender equality more broadly.

However, how women’s quotas are perceived can make a significant difference. This is shown by a new study by Dr. Madleen Meier-Barthold, now at the Rotterdam School of Management, and Prof. Dr. Torsten Biemann of the University of Mannheim. They found that women’s quotas can boost engagement among the entire workforce – but only if employees correctly perceive the policy and recognise it.

However, this is often not the case: The study shows that over 42 per cent of employees don’t know about women’s quotas when they do exist in an organisation, and 30 per cent think their organisation has one when it doesn’t.

For their study, the scientists analysed data from the Linked Personnel Panel, a representative German dataset linking 2,270 employer and employee reports.

The authors also found higher work engagement among the general workforce when employees believe a women's quota exists as part of the organisation's values and priorities, such as its commitment to gender equality. However, when women’s quotas are legally mandated, their positive effects are weaker, because the legal obligation weakens the message that employees receive about their organisation’s values. “Quotas can signal what an organisation values, but that signal weakens when quotas are mandated by law,” states first author Meier-Barthold.

“Policies don’t just ‘exist.’ They are noticed, often overlooked or misperceived, and then interpreted,” concludes Biemann. “It makes me wonder: how many other workplace policies go unnoticed or misunderstood by the very people they are meant to impact?”

The study, “Signaling Effects of Women’s Quotas: An Analysis of Workforce Perceptions and Reactions,” was published in the journal Human Resource Management. Meier-Barthold was a doctoral candidate at the University of Mannheim until 2023 and subsequently joined the Rotterdam School of Management.

This report is based on an article from the RSM Discovery research portal of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam: www.rsm.nl/discovery/2026/effective-workplace-diversity-policy

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