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Abstract
Abstract: This study is to investigate the effect of female gender diversity on Earnings management among listed non-financial firms in three selected Sub-Sahara African countries (Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa) were used for the period of ten years spanning 2009 to 2018. The study employed ex-post facto research design. The secondary sources of data were collected from annual reports of the selected non-financial firms quoted in their respective stock exchange and three specific objectives and hypotheses were tested and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and panel regression analysis. Using some selected Sub-Sahara African countries a sample of 750 observations were used with sample size of 75, the result revealed that the Female gender has the probability value (0.031) and the t-statistic value of 2.97 revealed that having more female members in the board can lead to percentage decrease in the level of earnings management to the tune of -1.0145% which was statistically significant at 5% level of significance. The study rejects the null hypothesis and accepts the alternate hypothesis; therefore, the hypothesis shows thatfemale gender diversity has negative and significant effect on earnings management of quoted non-financial firms in Sub-Sahara Africa. The study recommends among others, that non-financial firms directors and audit committees should be constituted by independent persons with high level of integrity that can match words with action to help curb and mitigates classification shifting, increase the number of audit committee member with accounting or financial knowledge and ensure that audit committee members meet frequently in order to tackle important issues that might affect earnings quality of quoted non-financial firms in Sub-Sahara African countries. Keywords: female gender, diversity, Earnings management, non-financial firms, Sub-Sahara Africa, stock exchange