Julie A. Kmec

Hierarchical rank and women's organizational mobility: glass ceilings in corporate law firms.

This article revives the debate over whether women’s upward mobility prospects decline as they climb organizational hierarchies. Although this proposition is a core element of the “glass ceiling” metaphor, it has failed to gain strong support in previous research. The article establishes a firm theoretical foundation for expecting an increasing female disadvantage, with an eye toward defining the scope conditions and extending the model to upper‐level external hires. The approach is illustrated in an empirical setting that meets the proposed scope conditions: corporate law firms in the United States. Results confirm that in this setting, the female mobility disadvantage is greater at higher organizational levels in the case of internal promotions, but not in the case of external hires.

Setting Occupational Sex Segregation in Motion Demand-Side Explanations of Sex Traditional Employment

The employment of women in female-dominated occupations and men in male-dominated occupations (sex traditional employment) is a fundamental source of economic sex inequality. Despite this, we know little about how organizational practices and policies link workers to sex traditional jobs. The author tests theoretically hypothesized determinants of sex traditional employment using data on the sex of the last hire and the sex type of his or her occupation in nearly 3,000 establishments. The results are generally consistent with deskilling and organizational staffing accounts of sex traditional employment and confirm that a different system of sex segregation operates for women and men.

We (Have to) Try Harder Gender and Required Work Effort in Britain and the United States

Across three decades in both Britain and the United States, surveys indicate that women must work harder than men do. Using data from the 1997 Skills Survey of the Employed British Workforce (U.K.) and the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce (U.S.), the authors investigate two possible explanations for this gap in reports of required effort: gender differences in job characteristics and family responsibilities. In multivariate ordered logistic regressions, extensive measures of job characteristics do not explain the difference between women and men. Family obligations, as well, account for little or none of the gap. The authors argue that the association between gender and reported required work effort is best interpreted as reflecting stricter performance standards imposed on women, even when women and men hold the same jobs. The authors discuss alternative interpretations and implications for research.

Gender and Discretionary Work Effort Evidence From the United States and Britain

Do men and women differ in the extent to which they work beyond the level required by their jobs? Does this gender difference vary across national contexts? The authors answer these questions using survey data from the United States and Britain. Multivariate ordered logistic regression models reveal no gender difference in self-reported discretionary effort in the United States, but greater discretionary effort among women in Britain, net of individual, family, and workplace characteristics. The authors attribute these findings to a greater divergence of women’s and men’s labor force participation and careers, historically weaker regulation of workplace equality, and a sharper differentiation of gender roles in Britain than in the United States. They conclude by discussing the relevance of national context for shaping gender differences in work orientations and behaviors.

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Conditions as Moderators of Family Resource Transmission: High School Completion among At-Risk Youth

We investigate how neighborhood socioeconomic conditions (SES), family resources during adolescence, and high school completion are related for a sample of at-risk youth. Borrowing from the “neighborhood effects” and family literatures, we investigate whether the effects of family economic resources, connections to the community, school, and religious institutions and family structure on high school completion depend on levels of neighborhood SES. Analyses using panel data on nearly five hundred families in urban Philadelphia confirm that high SES neighborhoods enhance parental ability to turn some but not all of their resources into positive educational outcomes for their children. The results provide a basis for understanding the processes whereby neighborhoods influence parent-child resource transmission.

Making Gender Fit and “Correcting” Gender Misfits Sex Segregated Employment and the Nonsearch Process

This article highlights the extent to which finding a job without actively searching (“nonsearching”) sustains workplace sex segregation. We suspect that unsolicited information from job informants that prompts fortuitous job changes is susceptible to bias about gender “fit” and segregates workers. Results from analyses of 1,119 respondents to the 1996 and 1998 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are generally consistent with this expectation. Gender “misfits”—individuals employed in gender-atypical work groups— are more likely to move into gender-typical work groups than neutral ones. Women misfits are more likely to move into male-dominated than neutral work groups without a job search, but they join mostly desegregated occupations and receive lower job rewards than men misfits who change jobs without searching. We conclude that the nonsearch process serves as an important mechanism that sustains sex segregation and workplace inequality.

Human Resource Structures: Reducing Discrimination or Raising Rights Awareness?

Using data from 84 hospitals linked to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discrimination-charge data, we consider how four human resource (HR) structures affect hospitals’ receipt of discrimination charges. HR structures that establish accountability (affirmative action plans, EEO units) are marginally related to charges. Structures that moderate bias (management diversity training) reduce the odds of receiving a charge while structures that raise employees’ rights awareness (employee diversity training) increase the odds of receiving a charge. Structures relate differently to sexual harassment versus personnel charges.

Not Ideal: The Association Between Working Anything but Full Time and Perceived Unfair Treatment

Ideal-worker norms permeate workplaces, guiding employers’ evaluation of workers and perceptions of workers’ worth. The authors investigate how an ideal-worker norm violation—working anything but full time—affects workers’ perception of unfair treatment. The authors assess gender and parental status differences in the relationship. Analyses using Midlife Development in the United States II data reveal that women who violate the norm when they have children perceive greater unfair treatment than women who violate the norm but do not have children in the study period. Men who work anything but full time do not perceive unfair treatment. The authors’ findings inform efforts to challenge ideal-worker norms.

The Process of Sex Segregation in a Gender-Typed Field: The Case of Male Nurses:

To what extent do organizational hiring practices contribute to the variation in mens share of hospital registered nursing (RN) positions? The answer to this question provides key insight into the process of workplace sex segregation in a traditionally feminine field. To that end, the present analyses examine how informal and formal hiring practices in over sixty Pacific Northwest hospitals affect the share of men holding hospital RN positions. Findings from Tobit regression analyses indicate that mens share of hospital RN jobs increases with an increased use of informal referrals to recruit RNs. Supervisor monitoring of hiring decisions, hospital use of walk-ins, and employment agency referrals to recruit RN applicants have no effect on mens share of RN positions. Although unexpected, these results are explicable in light of the occupations feminine gender type and gender status beliefs. The author discusses the implications of these findings for research investigating the sex segregation process in gender-typed occupations.

Collecting and Using Employer-Worker Matched Data

Abstract Employer-worker matched data, data containing information about workers and their employing establishments, provide a beneficial data source for organizational sociologists. Researchers can use matched data to investigate how organizational contexts and individual attributes affect work outcomes and to identify the causal mechanisms that produce workplace inequality. This article describes three methods of collecting employer-worker matched data and the benefits and drawbacks associated with each method. I highlight how researchers can use matched data by linking each method with specific research goals. In doing so, I pay particular attention to the ways researchers can use matched data to improve our understanding of inequality in the workplace.