Abstract: By selecting the data of Chinese A-share listed firms during the period of 2011—2020 as the initial research sample,this paper studied the relationship between regional residents’ gender equality value acceptance and local corporate ESG performance.The empirical results found that there was a significant positive relationship between regional residents’ gender equality value acceptance and corporate ESG performance,i.e.,the higher the acceptance of local residents’ gender equality values,the higher the corporate ESG performance.This finding still held after eliminating sample selection bias.In further analysis,formal institutions such as analyst attention and media attention could effectively enhance the positive effect of regional residents' gender equality values on corporate ESG performance.It further proved that formal and informal institutions complement each other and together affected corporate ESG performance.