The Moderating Role of Board Gender Diversity on the Safety Performance–Firm Financial Performance Nexus: Evidence from JSE-Listed Firms

The mining industry remains one of the most hazardous industries globally, with occupational injuries and fatalities imposing significant operational and financial costs on companies. Although prior research has explored the impact of workplace safety on financial performance, limited attention has been devoted to the role of board gender diversity in influencing this relationship. This paper examines the association between safety performance and firm financial performance in 46 JSE-listed mining firms, considering the moderating role of board gender diversity. This study adopted an unbalanced panel dataset covering the period 2015 to 2025. Safety performance data were obtained from sustainability reports and integrated reports, while data on financial performance and board gender diversity were obtained from annual financial reports. A fixed effects model was adopted to establish the relationship between study variables, while the two-step system generalised method of moments was used as a robustness test. This study found a statistically significant negative association between the injury frequency rate and financial performance of JSE-listed mining firms, whereas the fatality frequency rate was not significantly associated with financial performance. The findings show that board gender diversity shapes the safety performance–firm financial performance relationship. This study contributes to the occupational safety and corporate governance literature by providing evidence on the governance conditions under which safety performance influences financial performance in the South African mining sector. This study’s results suggest that JSE-listed mining firms should improve occupational safety programmes and promote greater female representation on corporate boards to improve long-term financial performance.