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The old boy network: are the professional networks of female executives less effective than men's for advancing their careers?

Author

Listed:
  • Marie Lalanne
  • Paul Seabright

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

We investigate the impact of professional networks on men's and women's earnings, using a dataset of European and North American executives. The size of an individual's network of influential former colleagues has a large positive association with remuneration, with an elasticity of around 21%. However, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity using various fixed effects as well as a placebo technique, we find that the real causal impact of networks is barely positive for men and significantly lower for women. We provide suggestive evidence indicating that the apparent discrimination against women is due to two factors: first, both men and women are helped more by own-gender than other-gender connections, and men have more of these than women do. Second, a subset of employers we identify as ‘female friendly firms' recruit more women but reward networks less than other firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Marie Lalanne & Paul Seabright, 2022. "The old boy network: are the professional networks of female executives less effective than men's for advancing their careers?," Post-Print hal-03609151, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03609151
    DOI: 10.1017/S1744137421000953
    as

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