Gender and Promotion in the Workplace: A Factor Analysis of the Israeli Social Survey 2008

1. Factor Analysis of Promotion of employees in the workplace: The Gender AspectBased on the Israeli Social survey 2008Nurit DobrinGeneva, March 2012

2. Table 1. Employment status by sex, age 25-64 2008

3. Table 2. Full-time versus part-time employment by sex, age 25-64, 2008

4. Diagram 1. Gross income from work, in NIS, by sex, 2008, percentages

5. Occupation, gender and promotion

6. “Has there been any change in your status at work (comparing the beginning of your employment to the current period)?” • “Yes, there has been promotion”: • 44% of men • 39% of women

7. Table 3. Rate of promotion of employees byoccupation1 and sex, percentages 1Based on occupations at a 2-digit differentiation level. 973.6

8. Diagram 2. Employees by sex, by gross monthly income, by education and by promotion,percentages

9. Diagram 3. Employees with over five years of seniority in the workplace by sex, by number of weekly work hours and by promotion, percentages

10. Diagram 4. Promotin of Employees with over five years of seniority, by sex and age of youngest child in the household, percentages

11. Multivariate Analysis • The multivariate analysis demonstrates the complex outcome: • The correlation between work hours and sex is significant: It is women who have a higher probability of promotion.

12. men women Diagram 5. Estimated probability of promotion at work according to the model

13. Conclusions and Discussion • Overall, the percentage of women reporting promotion was lower than the percentage of men • Lower participation of women in the labor market in terms of number of work hours and full-time versus part-time work. • Women are over-represented in jobs characterized by low wage mobility, or ‘Dead end jobs’. These jobs are especially present in the public sector • Women report more “damage” in the occupational sphere as a result of childbirth.

14. …Conclusions and Discussion • At similar income levels, women are promoted more than men, probably due to a relatively high rate of academic degree holders among these women. • A similar outcome is obtained when the number of work hours is held constant: in each category of work hours per week, women are promoted more. • When the youngest child is of mandatory schooling age or older, women are promoted more. Keeping all the relevant factors held constant, the correlation between work hours and sex is significant: It is women who have a higher probability of promotion.

15. Explanations • Several possible explanations for the fact that when various demographical and occupational variables are held constant, women report more promotion: • Women reach these positions as a result of promotion, whereas men reach them by other means, such as due to initial terms of employment or contract parameters. • Women who invest the work hours and accumulate the seniority allowing progress at work may attain higher achievements, and therefore earn more promotion than men. • A different interpretation by men and women of “promotion in status or position,” as the survey was worded.

16. AGlass Ceiling We are speaking about barriers that are not visible but rather hidden, a phenomenon that reveals the invisible limitations and barriers that stand before women (or other minority groups) on their path to management and leadership in various fields: politics, academics, communications, medicine, law and others.

17. More questions than answers • The deeper question over and above the visible facts is why are women concentrated in those fields that don't allow them advancement? • How much does freedom of choice weigh in? Do women really choose the path that allows them to combine work with responsibility for family and children? • Or that they do not choose at all, because of the laws of nature? Laws of culture?

18. Nurit Dobrin, the Social Survey ICBS