Gender Differences in Promotion on a Job Ladder: Evidence from Finnish Metalworkers

This paper, using panel data on Finnish metalworkers for the years 1990-2000, explores gender differences in the allocation of workers across jobs of different complexity. The data provide measures for the complexity of the workers' tasks and for the individual productivity of each worker. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Industrial & labor relations review 2006-01, Vol.59 (2), p.285-301
Main Authors: Pekkarinen, Tuomas, Vartiainen, Juhana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case studies
Employee promotions
Employment
Finland
Gender
Gender differences
Labor management relations
Labour relations
Men
Metal Industry
Metals
Metals industries
Metalworkers
Occupational promotion
Panel data
Productivity
Promotion (Occupational)
Quit rates
Sex discrimination
Sexual Inequality
Studies
Wage differentials
Wages
Workers
Working women
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Summary:This paper, using panel data on Finnish metalworkers for the years 1990-2000, explores gender differences in the allocation of workers across jobs of different complexity. The data provide measures for the complexity of the workers' tasks and for the individual productivity of each worker. The results indicate that women were less likely to be promoted than men who started their careers in similar tasks. A productivity comparison shows that there was no gender-related productivity differential at the time of the initial assignment, but that women became, on average, more productive than men afterward, in the subsets both of promoted workers and of non-promoted workers. The most plausible interpretation of these results, the authors argue, is that women faced a higher promotion threshold than men. Consistent with this interpretation, they find that the quit rate for young female workers was higher than that for young men.
ISSN:0019-7939
2162-271X
DOI:10.1177/001979390605900206