Moving Up or Falling Behind? Gender,Promotions, and Wages in Canada

We estimate that Canadian women working full time are 1.8 percentage points less likely to be promoted, receive fewer promotions, and experience 2.8 percent less wage growth following promotions than similar men. Significant “family gaps” exist among women. Women without children are less likely to have been promoted than similar men but experience similar wage growth following promotions, while women with children are as likely to have been promoted but experience less wage growth following promotions. Weekly hours and overtime hours explain significant fractions of these gender gaps. Though not precisely estimated, gender gaps in promotions also exist among part‐time workers.     

Climbing the Job Ladder: New Evidence of Gender Inequity

An explanation for the gender wage gap is that women are less able or less willing to “climb the job ladder.” However, the empirical evidence on gender differences in job mobility has been mixed. Focusing on a subsample of younger, university‐educated workers from an Australian longitudinal survey, we find strong evidence that the dynamics of promotions and employer changes worsen women’s labor market position.     

New Evidence on Gender Differences in Promotion Rates: An Empirical Analysis of a Sample of New Hires

Using a large sample of establishments drawn from the Multi‐City Study of Urban Inequality employer survey, we studied gender differences in promotion rates and in the wage gains attached to promotions. Several unique features of our data distinguish our analysis from the previous literature on this topic. First, we have information on the wage increases attached to promotions, and relatively few studies on gender differences have considered promotions and wage increases together. Second, our data include job‐specific worker performance ratings, allowing us to control for performance and ability more precisely than through commonly used skill indicators such as educational attainment or tenure. Third, in addition to standard information on occupation and industry, we have data on a number of other firm characteristics, enabling us to control for these variables while still relying on a broad, representative sample, as opposed to a single firm or a similarly narrowly defined population. Our results indicate that women have lower probabilities of promotion and expected promotion than men do but that there is essentially no gender difference in wage growth with or without promotions.     

Job Satisfaction and Promotions

This paper estimates the impact of promotions and promotion expectations on job satisfaction using the 1996–2006 waves of the NLSY79 dataset. Having received a promotion in the past 2 years leads to increased job satisfaction, even while controlling for the worker’s current wage, wage rank within her peer group, and wage growth. Workers who believe a promotion is possible in the next 2 years also report higher job satisfaction. Additionally, past promotions have a lingering, but fading impact on job satisfaction.     

Job Characteristics and Labor Market Discrimination in Promotions

We extend promotion signaling theory to generate new testable implications concerning racial differences in promotions. In our model, promotions signal worker ability. When tasks differ substantially across job levels, the opportunity cost of not promoting qualified non‐whites/non‐Asians is large, so employers are less likely to inefficiently withhold their promotions. Thus, given prepromotion performance, the extent to which non‐whites/non‐Asians have lower promotion probabilities decreases when tasks vary more across levels. Racial differences in wage increases at promotion diminish when tasks vary more across levels. Evidence from a single firm's personnel records supports the model's predictions concerning promotion probabilities.     

Cross‐National Analysis of Gender Differences in Job Satisfaction

Research over the past two decades has found significant gender differences in subjective job satisfaction, with the result that women report greater satisfaction than men in some countries. This paper examines the so‐called “gender paradox” using data from the European Social Survey for a subset of fourteen countries in the European Union. We focus on the hypothesis that women place higher values on certain work characteristics than men, which explains the observed differential. Using estimates from Probit and ordered Probit models, we conduct standard Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions to estimate the impact that differential valuations of characteristics have on the gender difference in self‐reported job satisfaction. The results indicate that females continue to report higher levels of job satisfaction than do men in some countries, and the difference remains even after controlling for a wide range of personal and job characteristics and working conditions. The decompositions suggest that a relatively small share of the gender differential is attributable to gender differences in the weights placed on working conditions in most countries. Rather, gender differences in job characteristics contribute relatively more to explaining the gender–job satisfaction differential.     

Employment Disruptions and Supervisors

This study estimates the effect of past career disruptions on the probability a worker has supervisory status and responsibility for determining promotions or setting pay, paying particular attention to gender differences. Past unemployment spells are negatively correlated with supervisory status; however, the correlation is economically small. Differences in employment history cannot explain the difference in rates of supervisor status between men and women.     

Occupational Stereotypes and Gender‐Specific Job Satisfaction

Using representative data containing information on job satisfaction and workers’ gender‐specific prejudices, we investigate the relationship between stereotyping and job satisfaction. We show that women in stereotypically male jobs are significantly less satisfied with their work climate and job content than in stereotypically female jobs but more satisfied with their income in those same jobs. Our findings indicate that women trade off their higher income satisfaction against the negative consequences of stereotyping. As long as we take into account that stereotypically male jobs are physically more demanding than stereotypically female jobs, men are generally more satisfied with stereotypically male jobs.     

Job Interruptions and Part-Time Work: Their Effect on MBAs' Income

An examination of the frequency of job interruptions and part-time work among a large sample of MBAs finds that such breaks in full-time employment are more likely among female than male MBAs. The most common reason given by both men and women for these interruptions is "could not find (suitable)Job" Only women are also Very likely to cite "family reasons" or "spouse transferred". Regression results show that interruptions to full-time work because one "could not find (suitable) job" have a much more negative impact on later income than do interruptions for family-related reasons.     

Training and Promotion: Allocation of Skills or Incentives?

This paper analyzes the impact of training on the probability of promotion. Results from the British Household Panel Survey indicate that training increases the probability of promotion of female workers, but not that of male workers. In terms of wages, men obtain significant returns from (general and specific) training acquired with their current employer, while women profit from general training. Overall, results suggest that career moves of women are importantly affected by the market value of their skills, while those of men fit better a model of promotions as providers of incentives.     

Two paths towards job instability: Comparing changes in the distribution of job tenure duration in the United Kingdom and Germany, 1984–2014

This study provides novel evidence on trends in job stability in the United Kingdom and Germany, two capitalist economies with distinct sets of institutions and labour market reform trajectories. While we find evidence of an increase in short-term jobs for men in both countries, we also find important differences in the overall patterns of change in the distribution of job tenure duration. The United Kingdom follows a masked instability pattern with opposite job stability trends for men and women. On the other hand, we find evidence of a polarization of the job tenure distribution among men and women in Germany. These findings are partly consistent with expectations from the dualization literature, emphasizing a growing segmentation of the labour market between insiders and outsiders. More generally, this study highlights the existence of multiple paths towards increased job instability that appear to be rooted in institutional differences.     

Gender and Job Search in Developing Country Labor Markets

Gender discrimination in developing country labor markets raises the concern that women may be unable to find alternative employment following public-sector job loss. Theoretical and empirical results in this article suggest that, in segmented labor markets, observed unemployment spells may actually be shorter for women than for men. This is a result of the relatively strong incentive wage-sector discrimination creates for women to accept more readily available, but less-remunerative, nonwage-sector positions.     

Job Satisfaction in Britain: Coping with Complexity

Claims for a growth of despondency in the British workforce in the 1990s, based on job satisfaction data, are questioned by an evaluation of: (i) the bases of comparison, (ii) features of job‐satisfaction measures, (iii) the properties of key data sets and (iv) inferences drawn from the data. A more complex situation is presented showing significant falls in satisfaction with the job facets, the work itself, and hours worked; significant rises in satisfaction with total pay and security of job; a steep decline in overall job satisfaction among women and stable or slightly rising overall job satisfaction among men. Trends in job quality, workforce composition, the economic cycle and changing work values among women, rather than generalized despondency, are proposed as sources for hypotheses for future research. The latter should include a review of data requirements, and research on the performance of measures of job satisfaction.     

The Changing Importance of Lifetime Jobs, 1892–1978

Individual-level data on the job tenure of 2,981 workers surveyed by the California Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1892 are used to estimate the extent of lifetime jobs in that era. Among nonunion, native-born men the proportion in jobs with eventual tenure of 20 or more years was about half, and among foreign-born men a fourth, the rate among men in the modern workforce, consistent with the hypothesis of a fundamental change in employment relations over time. Changes for women were even more pronounced but of a different character.     

Job satisfaction and employer-sponsored training

This article examines whether participation in employer-sponsored training has a causal impact on job satisfaction by accounting for individual fixed effects, individual-by-employer fixed effects and controlling for promotions in a sub-sample of the data to address the endogeneity of participation arising from within employer job changes. The estimates show a consistent, positive effect of participation in employer-sponsored training on job satisfaction. Conversely, participation in other types of training does not have a significant impact upon job satisfaction. Additionally, participation in employer-sponsored training has a strong, negative correlation with turnover even while controlling for job satisfaction. Training does not exhibit a lasting effect of either job satisfaction or turnover.     

Gender Differences in Involuntary Job Loss: Why Are Men More Likely to Lose Their Jobs?

Empirical studies have consistently reported that rates of involuntary job loss are significantly lower among female employees than among males. Only rarely, however, have the reasons for this differential been the subject of detailed investigation. In this article, household panel survey data from Australia are used that also find higher rates of job loss among men than among women. This differential, however, largely disappears once controls for industry and occupation are included. These findings suggest that the observed gender differential primarily reflects systematic differences in the types of jobs into which men and women select.     

Strategic promotion tournaments and worker performance

In this analysis I study promotion schemes as human resource management strategies by which the firm can realize strategic goals by motivating workers to higher levels of effort and performance. Using information on promotions, wages, and performance for professional workers in a cross‐section of establishments in four metropolitan areas of the United States, I investigate empirically the proposition that firms strategically organize promotion tournaments to motivate workers to higher levels of performance. I present evidence suggesting that relative performance of workers determines promotions, supporting the notion of internal promotion competitions in which internal hiring policies and fixed job slots combine to create competitions among workers of a given rank in a firm. I then estimate a structural model of promotion tournaments that simultaneously accounts for worker and firm behavior and how the interaction of these behaviors gives rise to promotions. The results are consistent with the prediction of tournament theory that workers are motivated by larger spreads. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A large-scale field experiment on occupational gender segregation and hiring discrimination

We analyze the relationship between occupational gender composition and gender discrimination in recruitment and investigate whether there is hiring discrimination against men in female-dominated occupations. We do this with a large-scale field experiment where we submitted more than 12,000 job applications for 12 occupations in Australia, varying the gender of the applicants. Men received around 50% more callbacks than women in male-dominated occupations, while they received over 40% fewer callbacks in female-dominated occupations.     

Men versus women in industrial sales: A performance gap

Sales managers have typically directed an all-male sales force. Today, they are recruiting women for positions in industrial sales. Whereas such managers may have a number of questions about women, probably the single most important question is how men and women compare in job performance. Although trade publications report that women have done quite well in sales [1], the question should not be considered resolved. Trade reports are extremely useful but are not based on systematic evidence. Another difficulty with trade reports is the failure to test for spurious relationships, that is, apparent relationships due to variables correlated with both sex and performance. In particular, variables that may be related to both sex and job performance should be examined to see whether job performance differences are actually due to the sex of the person or whether such relationships are spurious.     

Jobs Lost, Jobs Regained: An Analysis of Black/White Differences in Job Displacement in the 1980s

Over the period 1982–1991, black men were considerably more likely to experience job displacement than were white men, and following displacement, the likelihood of reemployment was substantially lower for black men. Using data from the 1984–1992 Displaced Worker Surveys, we find that black men experienced rates of job displacement that were 30 percent higher, and reemployment rates that were 30 percent lower than the corresponding rates for white men. We find that racial differences in education levels and occupational distributions explain part of these racial gaps in job displacement and reemployment, whereas racial differences in industry distributions worked to narrow these gaps.