Gender and Wage Gap

Cohen, Philip and Matt Huffman. (2007). “Working for the Woman? Female Managers and the

Gender Wage Gap,” American Sociological Review, 72:5, 681-704.

Taking a step away from traditional research on the subject, which was typically concerned with a woman’s access to high level managerial jobs and the traditional “glass ceiling” that seemed to prevent gender equality among managers, authors Cohen and Huffman provide a detailed analysis to ask different questions: do the gender characteristics of managers affect the inequality of non-managers reporting to them?

The study itself was indeed exhaustive. The authors used U.S. Census data collected in 2002 from 79 major metropolitan labor markets across the span of 155 industries. They examined over 1.3 million records on workers to test their hypothesis. After analysis, their findings showed that as women advance into positions of greater authority, and have decision making impact on wage and mobility, the wage gap between genders declined. Women in managerial positions clearly help women, but they help men, too – it seems that allowing women to influence hiring, firing and wage/human resource decisions makes for a more equitable workplace.

A significant strength to this paper, too, is their review of the literature and their ability to effectively synthesize materials from wider studies to allow for incorporation into their own work. However, it was clear from the outset that several factors needed to be addressed prior to data collection and extrapolation. First, is there a difference in the way local and national industries utilize women managers? Can women even bridge the managerial gap or does gender inequality vary so widely amongst demographic areas that research between them is not comparable? Using studies from 2003 and 2004, the authors found that indeed, gender inequality varies systematically across larger markets, although now that there are more women in the workplace, statistical analysis...