“The Broken Rung: Gender and the Leadership Gap”, 2024-04-11 (; similar):
[commentary] Addressing female underrepresentation in leadership positions has become a key policy objective. However, little is known about the extent to which leadership appeals differently to women.
Collecting new data from a large firm, I document that:
women are substantially less likely to apply for early-career promotions. Realized application patterns and large-scale surveys reveal the role of an understudied feature of promotions—having to assume responsibility over a team—which is less appealing to women.
This gender difference is not accounted for by standard explanations, such as success likelihood or confidence, but is rather a product of common design features of leadership positions.