Newswise — Women who break through the "glass ceiling" into top management jobs can help narrow the gender wage gap for nonmanagerial women who work for them, sociologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of California, Irvine have found.
The new study reveals that the promotion of women into management positions may benefit all women - but only if those female managers reach relatively high-level positions within managerial hierarchies. It is the first large-scale analysis of its type using national data on workers and managers.
Study co-authors Dr. Philip N. Cohen of UNC and Dr. Matt L. Huffman of UCI will present their findings Saturday (Aug. 12) in Montreal at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Founded in 1905, the nonprofit association is the largest professional association of sociologists. It has nearly 14,000 members and publishes 10 professional journals and magazines.
The two analyzed 2000 U.S. Census figures, with a sample size of 1.32 million workers in 29,294 local jobs in 1,318 local industries for the study, "Working for the Man: Management Characteristics and the Gender Wage Gap."
"Female managers do matter, but it's not enough to just have more women in positions of authority," Cohen said. "These results suggest they have to be high enough up in the organization to make a difference for all the women below them. The presence of high-level female managers has a much larger impact: increasing women's wages and decreasing wage inequality by gender."
The study highlights in a new way the significance of the glass ceiling, Cohen said. Previous research has focused on access to managerial jobs. This study examined what happens when women do break through the glass ceiling into upper management.
"Due to the glass ceiling, not only are qualified women potentially blocked from upper-level management positions, but their absence in upper management has ripple effects that potentially shape workplace outcomes for nonmanagerial women as well," Cohen said.
In the past 20 years more and more women have moved into managerial positions, but they have remained concentrated in lower-level positions, Huffman said: "And in some cases women's positions are reclassified as 'managerial' even though they have little real authority."
Cohen, who came to UNC in 2005, researches work and family issues, including the division of housework and women's employment. He also examines inequality, segregation and discrimination by race and gender in the workplace.
American Sociological Association contact: Johanna Olexy, (202) 247-9871; [email protected]
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