Do Women Top Managers Help Women Advance? A Panel Study Using EEO-1 Records

Fidan Ana Kurtulus () and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey
Additional contact information
Fidan Ana Kurtulus: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey: North Carolina State University

No 6444, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The goal of this study is to examine whether women in the highest levels of firms' management ranks help reduce barriers to women's advancement in the workplace. Using a panel of over 20,000 private-sector firms across all industries and states during 1990-2003 from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, we explore the influence of women in top management on subsequent female representation in lower-level managerial positions in U.S. firms. Our key findings show that an increase in the share of female top managers is associated with subsequent increases in the share of women in mid-level management positions within firms, and this result is robust to controlling for firm size, workforce composition, federal contractor status, firm fixed effects, year fixed effects and industry-specific trends. Moreover, although the influence of women in top management positions is strongest among white women, black, Hispanic and Asian women in top management also have a positive influence on subsequent increases in black, Hispanic and Asian women in mid-level management, respectively. Furthermore, the influence of women in top management positions is stronger among federal contractors, and in firms with larger female labor forces. We also find that the positive influence of women in top leadership positions on managerial gender diversity diminishes over time, suggesting that women at the top play a positive but transitory role in women's career advancement.

Keywords: hiring; promotions; mentoring; discrimination; race diversity; gender diversity; women managers; retention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J21 J24 J44 J62 J71 J78 J82 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2012-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-dem, nep-hme and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Published - published as 'Do Female Top Managers Help Women to Advance? A Panel Study Using EEO-1 Records' in: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2022, 639, 173-197

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6444.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6444

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().