Board generational cohorts, gender diversity and corporate environmental and social disclosures: Evidence from China

•Board generational cohort diversity affects corporate environmental and social disclosure.•Female directors of the cultural revolution generation are associated with more corporate environmental and social disclosure.•Female directors of the social reform generation are associated with less disclosure of environmental and social issues.•Governmental shareholding is associated with higher level of corporate environmental and social disclosure for directors of the social reform generation. We examine the association between board generational cohorts and corporate environmental and social disclosure. We find that older board members have a positive association with corporate environmental and social disclosures. In contrast, the moderately younger and youngest board members limit corporate environmental and social disclosures. Our results are robust to potential endogeneity with the use of alternative model specifications, with the youngest board members accounting for a lower level of corporate environmental and social disclosures. Furthermore, we find that the presence of gender diversity on the board moderates the relationship between board generational cohorts and corporate environmental and social disclosures and reporting incentives are important to oldest and youngest board members in their push for environmental and social disclosures. Finally, additional analysis indicates that firms with governmental shareholding are associated with a higher level of corporate environmental and social disclosures as compared to firms without governmental shareholding when board members are moderately young.