IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bri/cmpowp/07-183.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Economic Theory of the Glass Ceiling

Author

Listed:
  • Paul A. Grout
  • In-Uck Park
  • Silvia Sonderegger

Abstract

The glass ceiling is one of the most controversial and emotive aspects of employment in organisations. This paper provides a model of the glass ceiling that exhibits the following features that are frequently thought to characterise the problem: (i) there is a lower number of female employees in higher positions, (ii) women have to work harder than men to obtain equivalent jobs, (iii) women are then paid less than men when promoted, and (iv) some organisations are more female friendly than others. These features emerge as an equilibrium phenomenon, when identical firms compete in "Bertrand-like" fashion. Furthermore, they also occur even when offering women the same contract as men in higher positions would be sufficient to ensure that women in those positions would always prefer permanent career over non-market alternatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul A. Grout & In-Uck Park & Silvia Sonderegger, 2007. "An Economic Theory of the Glass Ceiling," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 07/183, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    • Handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:07/183
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/CMPO/workingpapers/wp183.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Neumark & Roy J. Bank & Kyle D. Van Nort, 1996. "Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 915-941.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Kevin Lang & Michael Manove & William T. Dickens, 2005. "Racial Discrimination in Labor Markets with Posted Wage Offers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1327-1340, September.
    4. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2008. "Exploring the Impact of Financial Incentives on Stereotype Threat: Evidence from a Pilot Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 370-375, May.
    5. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    6. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    7. Kanazawa, Satoshi, 2005. "Is "discrimination" necessary to explain the sex gap in earnings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 269-287, April.
    8. Cecilia Rouse & Claudia Goldin, 2000. "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 715-741, September.
    9. Wiji Arulampalam & Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2007. "Is There a Glass Ceiling over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap across the Wage Distribution," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(2), pages 163-186, January.
    10. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    11. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1990. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Job Ladders," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 106-123, January.
    12. James Albrecht & Anders Bjorklund & Susan Vroman, 2003. "Is There a Glass Ceiling in Sweden?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 145-177, January.
    13. Roland G. Fryer, Jr., 2006. "Belief Flipping in a Dynamic Model of Statistical Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 12174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Marianne Bertrand & Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2009. "Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Corporate and Financial Sectors," NBER Working Papers 14681, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    16. George Baker & Michael Gibbs & Bengt Holmstrom, 1994. "The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 881-919.
    17. Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn C, 1993. "Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1220-1240, December.
    18. T. Clifton Green & Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Yue Tang, 2007. "Gender and Job Performance: Evidence from Wall Street," NBER Working Papers 12897, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    20. David M. Kreps & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1983. "Quantity Precommitment and Bertrand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 326-337, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David W. Johnston & Wang-Sheng Lee, 2012. "Climbing the Job Ladder: New Evidence of Gender Inequity," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 129-151, January.
    2. Mª Genoveva Dancausa Millán & Mª Genoveva Millán Vázquez de la Torre & Ricardo Hernández Rojas & Juan Antonio Jimber del Río, 2021. "The Spanish Labor Market: A Gender Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-22, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Goodall, Amanda H. & Osterloh, Margit, 2015. "Women Have to Enter the Leadership Race to Win: Using Random Selection to Increase the Supply of Women into Senior Positions," IZA Discussion Papers 9331, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Booth, Alison L., 2009. "Gender and competition," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 599-606, December.
    3. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    4. Olaf Hübler & Lukas Menkhoff, 2011. "Do Women Manage Smaller Funds?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(1), pages 107-126, February.
    5. Osorio, António (António Miguel), 2019. "Gender differences in competition: gender equality and cost reduction policies," Working Papers 2072/351587, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    6. Kato, Takao & Kodama, Naomi, 2017. "Women in the Workplace and Management Practices: Theory and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 10788, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Matti Keloharju & Samuli Knüpfer & Joacim Tåg, 2022. "What prevents women from reaching the top?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 51(3), pages 711-738, September.
    8. Johan N. M. Lagerlöf, 2016. "Strategic Gains from Labor Market Discrimination," Discussion Papers 16-03, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    9. Ulf Nielsson & Herdis Steingrimsdottir, 2018. "The signalling value of education across genders," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1827-1854, June.
    10. Souleymane Mbaye, 2019. "Trois évaluations d’actions de lutte contre les discriminations," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph19-01 edited by Pascale Petit, February.
    11. Beaurain, Guillaume & Masclet, David, 2016. "Does affirmative action reduce gender discrimination and enhance efficiency? New experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 350-362.
    12. David Masclet & Emmanuel Peterle & Sophie Larribeau, 2012. "The Role of Information in Deterring Discrimination: A New Experimental Evidence of Statistical Discrimination," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 201238, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    13. António Osório, 2019. "Gender differences in competition: gender equality and cost reduction policies," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 23(1), pages 27-52, June.
    14. Zheng Fang & Chris Sakellariou, 2015. "Glass Ceilings versus Sticky Floors: Evidence from Southeast Asia and an International Update," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 215-242, September.
    15. Adnan, Wifag & Miaari, Sami H., 2018. "Voting patterns and the gender wage gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 222-247.
    16. Nan L. Maxwell & Nathan Wozny, 2021. "Gender Gaps in Time Use and Labor Market Outcomes: What’s Norms Got to Do with it?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 56-77, March.
    17. Hassink, Wolter & Russo, Giovanni, 2010. "The Glass Door: The Gender Composition of Newly-Hired Workers Across Hierarchical Job Levels," IZA Discussion Papers 4858, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3143-3259 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Alison L. Booth, 2006. "The Glass Ceiling in Europe: Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?," CEPR Discussion Papers 542, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    20. Klumpp, Tilman & Su, Xuejuan, 2013. "Second-order statistical discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 108-116.
    21. Thomas Buser & Muriel Niederle & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2014. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Career Choices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1409-1447.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Glass Ceiling; Promotions; Career Options;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:07/183. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmbriuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.