At the same time, “addressing these deep-seated organsation issues, alongside the more common question of how hiring decisions are made, could be critical for increasing female participation in some of the best-paid jobs in society,” the researchers add.
Token gestures
According to Bidwell, this research paper is one of the first demonstrations that much of the segregation in the job application and hiring processes “happens because of how people apply for jobs rather than because of employer behaviour further down the line. And that, in turn, reflects what jobs women are able to identify with, and where they think they will be hired.”
When he talks to senior managers, particularly HR people, Bidwell says it’s clear that attracting and retaining women are important issues for them, especially because they know that women “are a big part of the talent pool out there, and they also know that customers are becoming more diverse,” reflecting a need for the same diversity in companies’ employees.
“But it’s not just a question of sticking more women in the company brochures, or having more women be part of the company’s on-campus recruiting,” he adds. “It’s a question of trying to change the culture, job perceptions and kinds of behaviour that people exhibit. My sense is that everybody talks about this, but I’m not sure how serious managers are about the tradeoffs they would have to make in order to attract and retain more women – such as reorganising basic work processes to allow for more reasonable work hours, or changing the norms about acceptable behaviour. That’s a much harder conversation to have.”
Bidwell and Barbulescu acknowledge that their research is based on a very specific population – highly skilled, highly paid, competitive MBA graduates – and they suggest several areas for future research. Other studies could examine whether these theories hold true for less-skilled and lower-paying occupations and/or for traditionally feminine settings such as nursing schools. Additional research might look at the process by which applicants learn about jobs, given that some recent studies conclude that “differential access to social networks may shape gender differences in job applications.” Researchers could also look more closely at the three broad categories that Bidwell and Barbulescu focus on – finance, consulting and general management — parsing out entrepreneurship, for example, which they say has one of the lowest levels of female applications of any job type.
Coincidentally, Bidwell and another Wharton professor, Ethan Mollick, recently conducted a separate survey of Wharton MBA graduates.
Among their findings: on average, people in investment banking and hedge funds 10 to 15 years out were making two to three times the amount of money as people in general management. That gap highlights the tremendous economic consequences of women’s decisions not to apply to investment banking jobs. On the other hand, the investment bankers had the lowest job satisfaction of any other group. “We surveyed them in 2011,” Bidwell says. “It was a particularly miserable time for them, which may have affected the results.”
