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Another ceiling? Can males compete for traditionally female jobs? - includes appendix

Journal of Management, Sept-Oct, 1997 by Leanne E. Atwater, David D. Van Fleet

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H5A: Males will be allocated higher salaries than females when they are selected as the first-choice applicant for a top-level management position in a traditionally female job.

H5B: Males will be allocated higher salaries than females when they are selected as the first-choice applicant for a mid-level management position in a traditionally female job.

H6: Male evaluators will allocate higher salaries than will female evaluators to job applicants selected for managerial positions in traditionally female jobs.

Method

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This methodology section is organized as follows: First, we present a description of the pre-test completed to identify female gender-typed jobs. Next, a description of the main study is presented. Third, the following are described: subjects; the experimental task; the selection scenarios created; the three experimental conditions; the information provided about hypothetical job applicants; data collection procedures; and the ranking and salary allocation tasks that subjects completed. Finally, the data collection design is summarized.

Identifying Gender-Typed Jobs

The determination of gender-typing of jobs was assessed empirically. Ninety-nine undergraduate business' students from three universities were asked to review a list of seven academic disciplines and indicate whether they believed a male or a female would be more successful as the Dean (top-level manager) in that academic discipline. The job of Dean was selected as a top-level management position based on the work of Sandler and Hall (1986). The same students were also asked to review a similar list of disciplines and indicate whether they thought a male or a female would be more successful as a "Coordinator" (mid-level manager) in that discipline.

Surprisingly, virtually no students felt that this request was inappropriate, or that there was no such thing as a job more suitable to a man or a woman. Overwhelmingly, the students were able to assign either a male or a female as more likely to be successful in each of the seven disciplines rated for top-level managers: Engineering; Physical Education and Sports Medicine; Business; Architecture and Environmental Design; Social Sciences; Social Work; and Nursing. The disciplines rated for mid-level manager were indicative of a specialty within each area. For example, instead of Engineering, the Coordinator managed a group within Electrical Engineering. As can be seen from the data presented in Table 1, both male and female students saw Engineering at both levels as a "male" job, followed closely by Physical Education and Sports Medicine. Nursing and Social Work were seen by both males and females as "female jobs." Female respondents [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] tended to see Business as a job suitable for males and females, while males saw Business as a "male" job. Both Architecture and Social Science were seen as rather neutral jobs by both males and females.

Because we were interested in potential gender bias in a female gender-typed job, Social Work was selected as the "female" gender-typed job for the purposes of this study. Work by Beggs and Doolittle (1993) suggested that while some occupations had become more gender-neutral since the 1970's, Social Work has become more female gender-typed. Nursing was not selected because earlier work (cf. Cohen & Bunker, 1975) had suggested that it was so sex-bound that individuals might not be able to remove biases associated with this occupation (cf. Williams, 1992), despite the fact that a large number of male nurses perform exceptionally well in the field.

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Another ceiling? Can males compete for traditionally female jobs? - includes appendix

Journal of Management, Sept-Oct, 1997 by Leanne E. Atwater, David D. Van Fleet

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