Researchers have found a connection between the gender of a male CEO’s children and how well his company performs in terms of social responsibility issues in six categories: community, diversity, employee relations, environment, human rights and product.

CEOs who have daughters get approximately 12% higher ratings for being socially responsible than those who have sons, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review.

The study also found the median firm with a CEO who has a daughter spends an extra 13.4% of the company’s net income on corporate social responsibility programs (CSR).

“Having a daughter seems to make the top executive of publicly traded companies in the U.S. a bit softer, specifically in the context of social responsibility,” the study’s co-author, Henrik Crongqvist, told The Washington Post.

The study is based on 379 CEOs for which researchers had both corporate social responsibility scores and information on their children.

The CSR category where the impact of CEOs with daughters was strongest is diversity.

The average age of the CEOs studied was 57.

Cronqvist made one point to the Post: Even male CEOs with a daughter tend to have only about one-third the social responsibility rating of CEOs who are women.