Bell, Linda (Department of Economics, Aarhus School of Business) Smith, Nina () (Department of Economics, Aarhus School of Business) Smith, Valdemar () (Department of Economics, Aarhus School of Business) Verner, Mette () (Department of Economics, Aarhus School of Business)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
In this paper the promotion process of top executive officers (CEOs) in Danish private firms is analysed. The main research question to be analysed is whether the lower chances for women to become promoted into top management jobs are mainly attributable to individual background characteristics and special focus is given to the effects of family related variables. The descriptive statistics suggest that the family background (marital status, number of children, spouse labour force participation, education and occupation) differs substantially by gender of individuals in top management. Furthermore, we will try to detect whether women in women-led companies are more likely to be promoted than women in firms managed by men only. The regression results show that the child variables have different effects for women (none) than for men (positive). This is interpreted as evidence of statistical discrimination of women, as the (potential) negative effect of children and parental leave behaviour is included in the constant term and hence applies to all women in the pool of potentials. Furthermore, males’ career opportunities are declining if the wife is working, whereas the women’s careers are only affected if their husbands have a high level occupation. The results also suggest that women employed in women-led firms are more likely to be promoted than in the case of not women-led firms.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
08-21.