Subjective Appraisals of Employee Potential: Do Gender and Managerial Level Matter?

Anica Rose ()
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Anica Rose: Paderborn University

No 22, Working Papers Dissertations from Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics

Abstract: While a growing number of empirical studies have analyzed gender differences at various career stages, there is a dearth of studies about formal appraisals of men’s and women’s career potential, i.e., their promotability. In this paper, I will empirically analyze whether female employees’ promotability assessments are systematically inferior to their equally qualified male colleagues. In doing so, I use detailed personnel data of a large global German company that has a formal promotability evaluation process in place. I consider a wide range of contextual variables that have been neglected in the past, such as information on employees’ demographic (i.e., gender, age, tenure) and job-related characteristics (i.e., pay grade, working hours, performance assessments), additional information on the employees’ direct supervisors, and the composition of the department. I find women’s likelihood of receiving an evaluation that qualifies them as promotable to be around 5 percentage points lower than for their male counterparts – the probability of receiving an outstanding assessment being only 20 percent per se. The gap is even more pronounced at around the age of 30, i.e., the average childbearing age in Germany. Furthermore, gender gaps persist at managerial levels, which points to the existence of systematic gender differences in formal promotability evaluation processes.

Keywords: Gender; discrimination; promotion; promotability rating; field study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J71 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46
Date: 2017-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pdn:dispap:22

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