IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmpps/ijm-12-2015-0220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender gap in upward mobility: what is the role of non-cognitive traits?

Author

Listed:
  • Yu-Wei Luke Chu
  • Susan Linz

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to find whether non-cognitive traits contribute to the gender gap in supervisory status and promotion. Design/methodology/approach - The authors use a large employer-employee matched data set collected from six former socialist countries to assess the link between non-cognitive traits and upward mobility. Findings - Controlling for workplace heterogeneity, the authors find that gender differences in locus of control, the preference for challenge vs affiliation, and adherence to work ethic together can explain about 7-18 percent of the gender gap in supervisory status and promotion. Originality/value - Overall, non-cognitive traits provide an important, though modest, explanation for the gender gap in upward mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu-Wei Luke Chu & Susan Linz, 2017. "Gender gap in upward mobility: what is the role of non-cognitive traits?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(6), pages 835-853, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-12-2015-0220
    DOI: 10.1108/IJM-12-2015-0220
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJM-12-2015-0220/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJM-12-2015-0220/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IJM-12-2015-0220?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Schurer, Stefanie, 2012. "The stability of big-five personality traits," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 11-15.
    2. Alan Manning & Joanna Swaffield, 2008. "The gender gap in early-career wage growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 983-1024, July.
    3. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Tan, Michelle, 2011. "Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-13, January.
    4. Elder, Todd E. & Goddeeris, John H. & Haider, Steven J., 2010. "Unexplained gaps and Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 284-290, January.
    5. Bonnett, Celia & Furnham, Adrian, 1991. "Who wants to be an entrepreneur? A study of adolescents interested in a Young Enterprise scheme," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 465-478, September.
    6. Linz, Susan J. & Semykina, Anastasia, 2009. "Personality traits as performance enhancers? A comparative analysis of workers in Russia, Armenia and Kazakhstan," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 71-91, February.
    7. Bhalotra, Sonia & Fernandez Sierra, Manuel, 2018. "The distribution of the gender wage gap," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    8. Ben Jann, 2008. "The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition for linear regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(4), pages 453-479, December.
    9. 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.
    10. Yolanda Pena‐Boquete & Sergio De Stefanis & Manuel Fernandez‐Grela, 2010. "The distribution of gender wage discrimination in Italy and Spain: a comparison using the ECHP," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(2), pages 109-137, May.
    11. Nicole M. Fortin, 2008. "The Gender Wage Gap among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    12. Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2015. "Locus of control and the labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.
    13. Merve Cebi, 2007. "Locus of Control and Human Capital Investment Revisited," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(4).
    14. Semykina, Anastasia & Linz, Susan J., 2007. "Gender differences in personality and earnings: Evidence from Russia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 387-410, June.
    15. Tuomas Pekkarinen & Juhana Vartiainen, 2006. "Gender Differences in Promotion on a Job Ladder: Evidence from Finnish Metalworkers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 59(2), pages 285-301, January.
    16. Wayne A. Grove & Andrew Hussey & Michael Jetter, 2011. "The Gender Pay Gap Beyond Human Capital: Heterogeneity in Noncognitive Skills and in Labor Market Tastes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(4), pages 827-874.
    17. Giovanni Russo & Wolter Hassink, 2012. "Multiple Glass Ceilings," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 892-915, October.
    18. Gerrit Mueller & Erik Plug, 2006. "Estimating the Effect of Personality on Male and Female Earnings," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(1), pages 3-22, October.
    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. Marta Palczynska, 2018. "Wage premia for skills: The complementarity of cognitive and non-cognitive skills," IBS Working Papers 09/2018, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.

    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. Yu-Wei Luke Chu & Susan Linz, 2017. "Gender gap in upward mobility: what is the role of non-cognitive traits?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(6), pages 835-853, September.
    2. Chu, Luke Yu-Wei & Linz, Susan J., 2015. "Gender gap in upward mobility: What is the role of non-cognitive traits?," Working Paper Series 19357, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    3. Claudia Roethlisberger & Franziska Gassmann & Wim Groot & Bruno Martorano, 2023. "The contribution of personality traits and social norms to the gender pay gap: A systematic literature review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 377-408, April.
    4. Christophe J Nordman & Leopold R Sarr & Smriti Sharma, 2019. "Skills, personality traits, and gender wage gaps: evidence from Bangladesh," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 687-708.
    5. Leonora Risse & Lisa Farrell & Tim R L Fry, 2018. "Personality and pay: do gender gaps in confidence explain gender gaps in wages?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(4), pages 919-949.
    6. Christophe J Nordman & Leopold R Sarr & Smriti Sharma, 2019. "Skills, personality traits, and gender wage gaps: evidence from Bangladesh," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 687-708.
    7. Brenzel, Hanna & Laible, Marie-Christine, 2016. "Does personality matter? : the impact of the big five on the migrant and gender wage gaps," IAB-Discussion Paper 201626, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    8. Nordman, Christophe Jalil & Sarr, Leopold & Sharma, Smriti, 2015. "Cognitive, Non-Cognitive Skills and Gender Wage Gaps: Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data in Bangladesh," IZA Discussion Papers 9132, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Szabó-Morvai, Ágnes & Kiss, Hubert János & Károlyi, Róbert, 2023. "Kontrollhely Magyarországon - egy reprezentatív felmérés eredményei [Locus of Control in Hungary: The results of a representative survey]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 847-871.
    10. Margarita Kiryushina & Victor Rudakov, 2021. "The Gender Gap in Early-Career Wages of Universities' and Vocational Education Institutes' Graduates," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 2, pages 172-198.
    11. Alita Nandi & Cheti Nicoletti, 2014. "Explaining personality pay gaps in the UK," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(26), pages 3131-3150, September.
    12. Кирюшина М. А. & Рудаков В. Н., 2021. "Гендерные Различия В Заработной Плате Выпускников Вузов И Учреждений Спо На Начальном Этапе Карьеры," Вопросы образования // Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 2, pages 172-198.
    13. Tushar Bharati & Thea Harpley Green, 2021. "Age at school transition and children’s cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 21-06, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    14. Sloczynski, Tymon, 2015. "Average Wage Gaps and Oaxaca–Blinder Decompositions," IZA Discussion Papers 9036, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Collischon & Matthias, 2018. "Can Personality Traits Explain Glass Ceilings?," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 965, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    16. Sloczynski, Tymon, 2013. "Population Average Gender Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 7315, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Sonja C. Kassenboehmer & Mathias G. Sinning, 2014. "Distributional Changes in the Gender Wage Gap," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 335-361, April.
    18. Engelhardt, Carina, 2017. "Unemployment and personality: Are conscientiousness and agreeableness related to employability?," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-621, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    19. Marta Palczynska, 2018. "Wage premia for skills: The complementarity of cognitive and non-cognitive skills," IBS Working Papers 09/2018, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    20. Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2015. "Locus of control and the labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.

    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:eme:ijmpps:ijm-12-2015-0220. 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: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.