The attitudes of subordinates to the gender of superiors in a managerial hierarchy

Abstract

The determinants of career success have become a particularly pressing social issue with the large-scale entry over the past few decades of women into bureaucratic careers. One dimension of the gender-based determinants of career success that has received considerable attention in recent years is the phenomenon of gender-based attitudes. The general argument is that, relative to men, women as a group fare less well in their careers because of their own pessimistic attitudes concerning the probability that their expenditures of time and effort will result in career success. The result of such behavior may over time affect the productivity, and even the ability, of women to perform their jobs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the attitudes of male and female career managers to the gender of bureaucratic superiors and to determine to what extent variation among subordinate career managers in their attitudes concerning the gender of superiors is in fact determined by gender itself and to what extent it is determined by non-gender factors. A multivariate log-linear probability model is used to estimate the determinants of attitudes to the gender of superiors and to estimate the joint probability of gender, meritocratic, and awareness factors in determining these attitudes. The data base was generated by means of a questionnaire, designed specifically for managers and was distributed to 800 middle managers employed by a major company in nine separate regions in Canada.