The Glass Web: Kinship Networks, Female Executives and Firm Outcomes in the Middle East

ABSTRACT Leveraging data on firms operating in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and a novel measure of family ties among firm executives, we show the quantitative importance of kinship ties for female executives in settings and industries characterised by low female representation. Our findings suggest that when economic incentives motivate male executives to recruit female candidates, kinship ties can help women penetrate what we call ‘the glass web’—a new way to understand the proverbial glass ceiling of invisible barriers that have historically excluded women from business leadership. We combine our executive‐level data with administrative employer–employee matched data for Saudi Arabia to show that greater representation of women among firm executives, with or without a kinship tie, is associated with more gender‐equal outcomes at the firm, including greater female employee share and smaller gender wage gaps.