Blind Ambition? The Effects of Social Networks and Institutional Sex Composition on the Job Search Outcomes of Elite Coeducational and Women’s College Graduates

Abstract

In this paper, I develop a perspective on women’s career attainment focused on how employers’ salary offers may be constructed based on their assumptions regarding women’s access to comparative salary information. Therefore, although the use of social networks in job search may enhance women’s actual knowledge of prevailing wages, I hypothesize that institutional characteristics that employers could assume to constrain women’s networks and concomitant access to salary information will directly affect salary offers, as well as moderating the influence of network ties on pay. To test this perspective, job search outcomes of women attending elite coeducational and women’s colleges were examined. Regarding the number of offers obtained, women who consulted with proportionally more male peer and employed adult male advice ties received significantly more job offers than women using fewer male advice contacts. With regard to salary offers, this study reveals an institutional sex composition effect: women exiting single-sex institutions (i.e., women’s colleges) received significantly lower salary offers than women from coeducational schools, even after accounting for human capital, job characteristics, and institutional reputation. The effects of social networks on pay were moderated by institutional sex composition such that women exiting women’s colleges received lower returns in the form of salary to their cross-gender advice ties than did women from a matched coeducational institution. Implications of these results for theories of social capital and women’s occupational attainment are discussed.

Bending the Pipeline? Executive Search and Gender Inequality in Hiring for Top Management Jobs

“…Scholars debate why these gender differences in career patterns emerge; suggested explanations include gender differences in socialization (O'Leary 1974;Marini and Brinton 1984;Betz and O'Connell 1989;Subich et al 1989;Marini et al 1996), segregated social network processes (Belliveau 2005), and stereotypical cultural beliefs about gendered job roles (Cejka and Eagly 1999) or gendered family roles (Becker 1991; but see Bielby andBielby 1984, 1988). In addition, Correll (2001Correll ( , 2004 argues that women have downwardly biased self-assessments of their own competences, and these biases are manifested in women's job choices.…”

Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity Among Professionals

“…Tajfel and Turner's (1986) conception of the social comparison process involves an evaluation of one's identity vis-à-vis membership in one group differentiated from another group (e.g., a woman compared to a man), while Festinger's (1954) conception focuses on social comparisons of one's attributes relative to the attributes of others within one's in-group (e.g., a woman compared to other women). Whether across or within groups, the choice of referent other in social comparisons is often based on demographic characteristics of the self and other (Belliveau 2005;Kilduff et al 2010;Major et al 1984).…”

Tipping Points: The Gender Segregating and Desegregating Effects of Network Recruitment

“…Research examining this question does not support such a correlation between segregation among contacts and job composition. Belliveau (2005) examined homophily in the networks of female college graduates as they transition to the labor market. There were no significant correlations between women's networks' gender homophily and either women's preference for working in a male-dominated occupation or the general gender composition (by job title) of their job offers.…”