The gender gap in workplace authority: a cross-national study

We explore a range of issues concerning the gender gap in workplace authority in seven countries (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Japan). There are six main empirical conclusions. First, there is considerable cross-national variation in the gender gap in authority: The gap is lowest in the four English-speaking countries (especially the United States and Australia) and highest in Japan. Second, the gender gap in authority within countries and the pattern of cross-national variation do not appear to be the result of gender differences in personal attributes or employment settings. Third, the self-selection hypothesis (that women choose not to seek authority because of family responsibilities) does not appear to account for much of the gender gap in authority, except perhaps in Canada. Fourth, we find little support for the 'glass-ceiling' hypothesis that barriers to upward promotions for women in authority hierarchies are greater than the barriers they face in getting into hierarchies in the first place. Fifth, in the United States the barriers faced by women already in hierarchies are weaker than in other countries, and probably weaker than the barriers they faced to enter hierarchies in the first place. Finally, we find suggestive evidence that these variations across countries in the gender gap in authority are explained by the interaction between the availability of managerial positions and the capacity of politically organized women's movements to challenge barriers to women gaining authority in the workplace.