Corporate social responsibility and labour cost stickiness: a focus on gender

This study examines the cost adjustment of corporate social responsibility (CSR) firms. Using detailed employee data of Korean listed companies, we find that labour cost stickiness is more pronounced for CSR firms. This is mainly due to the asymmetric adjustment of average wage rather than the number of employees. Interestingly, this asymmetric behaviour is more pronounced for male employees than female employees, suggesting that CSR firms exhibit a gender gap.