Women helping women? Evidence from private sector data on workplace hierarchies

Abstract

We study gender spillovers in career advancement using eleven years of employer-employee matched data on white-collar workers at over 4,000 private sector workplaces in Norway. Our data allow us to define seven hierarchical ranks that are consistent across plants and over time and track promotions even for individuals who change employers. We find positive spillovers across ranks (flowing from higher-ranking to lower-ranking women) but negative spillovers within ranks. The finding of narrower gender gaps in promotions for workers with more female bosses suggests that policies that increase female representation in corporate leadership can have spillover benefits to women in lower ranks.