Female consumer preferences and workplace diversity: Evidence from the box office

Abstract

Despite widespread belief in the significance of female screenwriters depicting the female experience, there is little quantitative evidence that audiences differentiate writer gender or that it affects box office performance. We examine the relationship between the gender of screenwriters and box office returns using data on the gender of writers for 4749 films released between 2000 and 2022, and their box office performance in up to 95 consumer markets with varying levels of female purchasing power. Our identification strategy allows us to control for unobserved attributes of film quality which otherwise confound attribution of box office returns to the gender representation either on or off screen. Our data indicates that female-written films attract a premium in consumer markets where women have greater discretion over spending.