Glass Ceiling - Studies

Studies

See also: Gender pay gap and Male-female income disparity in the United States

The gender pay gap is the difference between male and female earnings. In 2008 the OECD found that the median earnings of female full-time workers were 17% lower than the earnings of their male counterparts and that "30% of the variation in gender wage gaps across OECD countries can be explained by discriminatory practices in the labour market." The European Commission found that women's hourly earnings were 17.5% lower on average in the 27 EU Member States in 2008. The female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.77 in the United States in 2009.

In 2006 economists Wiji Arulampalam, Alison L. Booth, and Mark L. Bryan analyzed gender pay gaps across the wage distribution in eleven European countries. They controlled for the effects of individual characteristics at different points of the distribution and calculated the part of the gap attributable to differing returns between men and women (i.e., pay discrimination). The economists found that the gender pay gaps typically widened toward the top of the wage distribution (the "glass ceiling" effect), and in exceptional cases it also widened at the bottom (the "sticky floor" effect).

A study by John McDowell, Larry Singell and James Ziliak investigated faculty promotion on the economics profession and found that, controlling for quality of Ph.D. training, publishing productivity, major field of specialization, current placement in a distinguished department, age and post-Ph.D. experience, female economists were still significantly less likely to be promoted from assistant to associate and from associate to full professor. The results suggest the presence of a glass ceiling.

In 2009, David R. Hekman et al. found that white men receive significantly higher customer satisfaction scores than equally well-performing women and minority employees. Customers who viewed videos featuring a black male, a white female, or a white male actor playing the role of an employee helping a customer were 19% more satisfied with the white male employee's performance and also were more satisfied with the store's cleanliness and appearance. This despite that all three actors performed identically, read the same script, and were in exactly the same location with identical camera angles and lighting. In a second study, they found that white male doctors were rated as more approachable and competent than equally-well performing women or minority doctors. They interpret their findings to suggest that customer ratings tend to be inconsistent with objective indicators of performance and should not be uncritically used to determine pay and promotion opportunities.

A customer preference for white men may also help explain why white men hold the highest paying, most prestigious, and most powerful jobs in the occupational structure. This is referred to as occupational segregation. Men tend to be highly concentrated in the top professions, such as supervisors, managers, executives, and production operators. On the other hand, women tend to be over-represented in the lowest-ranking and lowest paid professions in the workforce, such as secretaries, sales associates, teachers, nurses, and child care providers. As a result, occupations become "sex typed" as either being specifically male or female jobs. The stereotypically male-characterized occupations, in which at least 60–75% of the workers are males, are more highly paid than occupations in which 60–75% of the jobholders are women. This segregation of women into less-prestigious and lower-ranked jobs also decreases a woman's chance of being promoted, as well as the chance of having any type of power over others. Moreover, occupational segregation reduces women's access to insurance, benefits, and pensions.

Women are concentrated into the lower-ranked and lower-paid occupations within a given profession. If women are in management positions, they are more likely to be in personnel than in marketing professions; the averages salaries of each are $48,048 and $56,940 per year, respectively. Another example occurs within the medical field. Female doctors are much more likely to be heavily constricted in the family practice, obstetrics/gynecology or pediatric specialties, which average about $130,000 and $126,000 per year, respectively. However, men are more likely to become surgeons and highly specialized medical practitioners, who tend to average $240,000 or more per year.

Women hold only 16% of the top executive positions in America's largest corporations and enterprises. Additionally, the median weekly income of full-time working women is only 70.5% of full-time working men. This statistic tends to hold true across all fields of work. This gender imbalance in occupations occurs to some degree because women are more likely than men to be newcomers in many fields; therefore, they lack the primacy and the increased pay that comes with seniority. When it comes to promotions, executives look at all the work that a woman has done but only looks at the potential that a man has. A woman has to prove herself and her talent in order to be considered for the same job that a man would only have to show potential for.

Gender Inequality is often embedded within the social hierarchy and this affects how women and men are perceived in leadership roles. Different traits are ascribed to females when compared to males that often color the selection process with unfounded bias. If a female does have other traits aside from the gendered traits that she is believed to possess, then she is viewed negatively. For example, in a study conducted by Thomas-Hunt and Phillips (2004) they found that when women possessed expertise they were actually viewed as less influential by others. However, expertise was positive for males. Also, female led groups were less productive than male led groups even though the women held expertise in the area just like males. Therefore, possessing expertise is not viewed as positively as it is for males. This also suggests that lack of skills is not the only reason why women are not deemed worthy of leadership roles. As cited by Lyness and Thompson in 1997, one consequence of sex stereotypes is that women's achievements tend to be devalued or attributed to luck or effort rather than ability or skill, and therefore this stereotype has the potential to reduce the organizational awards that they receive.

Lyness and Heilman (2006) found that in a study conducted with 448 upper-level employees that women were less likely to be promoted than males, and if they were promoted they had stronger performance ratings than males. However, performance ratings were more strongly connected to promotions for women than men. This suggests that women had to be highly impressive to be considered eligible for leadership roles, whereas this was not the case for men. In a number of longitudinal studies (Cox & Harquail, 1991; Olson, Frieze, & Good, 1987; Strober, 1982; Wallace, 1989; Wood, Corcoran, & Courant, 1993), that track comparably qualified men and women, such as graduates of the same MBA program or law school, it has been shown that over time there is degradation of the women's compensation that cannot fully be explained by differences in qualifications, work history, experience, or career interruptions.

Women are more likely to choose jobs based on factors other than pay, for instance: health care and scheduling that can be managed with the duties of primary care of children for which women are still overwhelmingly responsible, and thus they may be less likely to take jobs that require travel or relocation or jobs that are hazardous. On average, women take more time off and work fewer hours, often due to the unequal distribution of childcare labor, domestic labor, medical needs specific to women, and other family issues that tend to fall to a woman's responsibility per the gender roles assigned by society. The ending result of women's extensive obligation to attend to responsibilities of the home and children is that their wages plummet. Family demands have a downward pull on women's earnings as they proceed throughout their life course. The earnings gap tends to widen considerably when men and women are in their early to mid-thirties; the gap reaches the widest point when men and women are in their fifties.

Another perspective on the gender wage gap comes from a 2008 research study by Judge and Livingston. They investigated the relationship(s) between gender, gender role orientation, and labor marker earnings. The study did not specifically look at the gender wage gap, but focused more on the impact that the interaction between gender role orientation (people's beliefs about what occupations are considered suitable and appropriate for males and females) and gender has on earnings. The researchers suggested that the gender wage gap cannot fully be explained through economic factors, offering that underlying psychological components and attitudes account for some of the difference. They found that while traditional gender roles were positively connected to earnings, that gender significantly predicted the amount and direction of this relationship. For instance, traditional gender role orientation was positively related with earnings for males, providing them with strong earnings. Meanwhile, traditional gender role orientation was slightly negatively associated with earnings for females, providing them weaker earnings. This suggests that men who have traditional male-female attitudes about working are rewarded in the workplace for seeking to maintain the social order, while women were neither rewarded nor punished. In general, the study indicated that even though gender role beliefs are beginning to become less traditional for men and women, traditional gender role orientation continues to intensify the gender wage gap.