Do Women Suffer from Network Closure? The Moderating Effect of Social Capital on Gender Inequality in a Project-Based Labor Market, 1929 to 2010

Abstract

That social capital matters is an established fact in the social sciences. Less clear, however, is how different forms of social capital affect gender disadvantages in career advancement. Focusing on a project-based type of labor market, namely the U.S. film industry, this study argues that women suffer a “closure penalty” and face severe career disadvantages when collaborating in cohesive teams. At the same time, gender disadvantages are reduced for women who build social capital in open networks with higher degrees of diversity and information flow. Using large-scale longitudinal data on career profiles of about one million performances by 97,657 film actors in 369,099 film productions between the years 1929 and 2010, I analyze career survival models and interaction effects between gender and different measures of social capital and information openness. Findings reveal that female actors have a higher risk of career failure than do their male colleagues when affiliated in cohesive networks, but women have better survival chances when embedded in open, diverse structures. This study contributes to the understanding of how and what type of social capital can be either a beneficial resource for otherwise disadvantaged groups or a constraining mechanism that intensifies gender differences in career advancement.

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Networks of exclusion in a gendered organization in the high-tech industry

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“…Burt (1998) argues that women can be successful if they "borrow" social capital from a powerful (male) mentor, but most women have difficulty finding sponsors as compared to men, or receive less support from sponsors (Groysberg 2010). Homophily thus contributes to women's low-status networks, poor returns on mentorship, and consequent gender-and status-biased information creates cumulative career disadvantages for women (Lutter 2015).…”

“…Burt (1998) argues that women can be successful if they "borrow" social capital from a powerful (male) mentor, but most women have difficulty finding sponsors as compared to men, or receive less support from sponsors (Groysberg 2010). Homophily thus contributes to women's low-status networks, poor returns on mentorship, and consequent gender-and status-biased information creates cumulative career disadvantages for women (Lutter 2015).While these studies examine sex differences in networks, network theory tends to take a structuralist perspective -emphasizing how workers' formal structural locations determine the 42 composition of their networks more so than individual identity characteristics (Campbell, Marsden, and Hurlbert 1986; Ibarra 1993;Marsden 1988). In other words, network theory posits that gender or racial differences in the status of employees' network members should be due to gender and racial differences in structural factors such as organizational resources Most research comparing sex differences in networks also tends to assume genderneutral, rational actors, often implying disembodied ideal workers (Acker 1992).…”