GENCARGAP · Gender Career Gap and Firm Composition
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-09-09 → 2023-01-23
- EU contribution
- €172,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Gender Career Gap and Firm Composition
Despite considerable progress over the last century, gender inequality in the labor market remains high. Women still earn lower wages, are less likely to be employed and to be represented in the positions of power than observationally similar men. Economic research has long sought to understand the underlying causes of these large gender imbalances. Sorting across firms has been shown to play a particularly important role as women tend to work in smaller, lower-wage firms, that employ more women. Could these differences in gender composition of firms be in themselves a factor contributing to the labor market gender imbalances? Why should firms’ gender composition matter? The answer to this question varies across different levels of firm hierarchy. Starting from the top, female executives may act as a role model for more junior female employees, shifting their expectations and career aspirations. Having a female manager may create better mentoring and learning opportunities for women. Having more women at the lower end of the firm hierarchy, on the other hand, may create more competition if women tend to compete more against other women. The main objective of this project is to identify the impact of gender composition at different levels of hierarchy in a firm on career development of men and women.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
As careers progress women tend to lag behind their male peers. This career divergence results in the underrepresentation of women in positions of power, which is bound to bear an important cost to individuals, firms, and society. It is likely to be linked with a misallocation of talent, make the glass ceiling more impenetrable, and hinder future progress towards equality. The focus of this project is on the role of gender composition within firms and occupations on the career divergence of men and women. Relying on high quality administrative data and a credible empirical design, I will estimate how the share of women in a firm affects the gender career gap. Then employing structural estimation approach, I will test the effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing gender imbalances within the workplace, such as quotas or equal opportunity policy. Finally, I will conduct a comparative analysis across European countries to test the external validity of the findings and to draw lessons on the role of institutional environment and how it interacts with different employment policies. The question I address speaks directly to an ongoing global political and economic debate. Advancement towards gender equality is currently one of the priorities of the new Strategic Agenda of the EU. The approach I take is novel and the results have a potential to shed light on the underlying causes of workplace gender imbalances. Finally, the cross-country comparative analysis will add to the relevance of this proposal in a European perspective. The community of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Barcelona School of Economics and the supervision by Professor González constitute the perfect environment to conduct this project. The main factors being the outstanding research conditions, the strong affinity of research interests and agenda with the Supervisor, and the presence of a high number of experts with complementary knowledge and skills, which will lead to two-way knowledge transfer.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA · BarcelonaCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union