The role of job assignment and human capital endowments in explaining gender differences in job performance and promotion
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Authors
Pema, Elda
Mehay, Stephen
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
2009-03-04
Date
Publisher
Elsevier B.V.
Language
Abstract
We test a job ladders theory of career progression within internal labormarkets as developed by Lazear and Rosen
(1990). The theory argues that gender promotion gaps are due to sorting of men and women into career tracks
with different promotion opportunities based on ex ante quit probabilities. Analyzing US federal government
employees using a dynamic unobserved panel data model, we find that job assignment is one of the strongest
predictors of gender differences in promotion. We also find that women have to jump higher performance
hurdles to promote across grades, but, within grades, their promotion probabilities are comparable to those of
men. In this organization, women can be found in both fast- and slow-track jobs, based on their promotion
history, suggesting that unobserved heterogeneity is revealed to the firm over the worker's career.
Type
Article
Description
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2010.02.006
Series/Report No
Department
Graduate School of Business and Public Policy (GSBPP)
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
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NPS Report Number
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Funder
Format
12 p.
Citation
Pema, Elda, and Stephen Mehay. "The role of job assignment and human capital endowments in explaining gender differences in job performance and promotion." Labour Economics 17.6 (2010): 998-1009.
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.