Are Men Given Priority for Top Jobs? Investigating the Glass Ceiling in the Italian Academia

Arbeitspapier

We aim to investigate if men receive preferential treatment in promotions using the Italian system for the access to associate and full professor positions that is organized in two stages: first, candidates participate in a national wide competition to obtain the National Scientific Qualification (NSQ), then successful candidates compete to obtain a position in University Departments opening a vacancy. We investigate the probability of success in the two stages in relation to the candidate's gender, controlling for several measures of productivity and a number of individual, field and university characteristics. Whereas no gender differences emerge in the probability of obtaining the NSQ, females have a lower probability of promotion at the Department level. Gender gaps tend to be larger when the number of available positions shrink, consistent with a sort of social norm establishing that men are given priority over women when the number of positions is limited.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 9658

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Labor Discrimination ; Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions ; Public Sector Labor Markets ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
• Subject: gender discrimination ; glass ceiling ; academic promotions ; natural experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): De Paola, Maria ; Ponzo, Michela ; Scoppa, Vincenzo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/130328
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET