Ce document est publié dans l'intention de rendre accessibles les résultats préliminaires de la recherche effectuée au CIRANO, afin de susciter des échanges et des suggestions. Les idées et les opinions émises sont sous l'unique responsabilité des auteurs, et ne représentent pas nécessairement les positions du CIRANO ou de ses partenaires. This paper presents preliminary research carried out at CIRANO and
This paper makes the argument that the managerial advancement process is different for women and men. Men in management who choose to participate more fully in family labor experience gender role congruence pressures and are penalized in the workplace. Women in management experience statistical discrimination, meaning that they are viewed with suspicion and that their commitment and competence is over-tested. Findings from data collected in two large firms supported the gender role congruence and statistical discrimination perspectives. Specifically, effort expended on paid work was more strongly positively associated with advancement for men than for women. Participating in household labor hurt men's advancement more than it did women's. Demonstrating competence in a series of internal organizational experiences was more strongly associated with advancement for women than for men. Implications for theory, management, and future research are discussed.
Analyzing responses to a questionnaire sent in 1983 to managers in a large Canadian corporation, the author finds that women, who comprised 256 of the 692 managers in the sample and whose average earnings were 87 percent of the men's, were only 80 percent as likely as their male colleagues to be promoted in any given year of their careers with the firm. Although career-relevant factors such as childhood socialization, formal education, and firm-specific productivity had a significant impact on the probability of promotion, the influence of gender on a manager's chances of promotion is found to be sizeable even when those variables are held constant. OVER the past two decades, as managerial roles have opened up for women, the obstacles to promotion that confront them have become the subject of research and debate. Organizational behavior research has emphasized gender-based differences in career-related attitudes and career-enhancing activities. For example, Hennig and Jardim (1977) argue that men are much more aggressive than women in vying for promotion. In particular, men are more intent on, and adept at, building informal networks for rapid movement up the hierarchy, whereas women tend to rely more on formal procedures to gain promotion.Sociological studies have sought to locate the firm-specific origins of differen-
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