THE IGNORED RESOURCE: GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE LABOR FORCE
THE IGNORED RESOURCE: GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE LABOR FORCE

Summary/Abstract: This paper scrutinizes the phenomenon of gender discrimination in the labor force, focusing on women in managerial and non-executive positions alike. Due to different psychological mechanisms that are not mutually exclusive, individuals manifest discriminative behaviors against females. Career wise, gender discrimination leads to negative developments both from horizontal and vertical perspectives. From a vertical perspective, women are either underrepresented in top management (under normal conditions) or overrepresented in risky managerial positions (during crises or downturns); even in the limited number of sectors where women are predominant in the labor force, men have better odds of being promoted. From a horizontal perspective, women generally receive lower salaries (or equivalent forms of compensation) than their male counterparts (taking into account other factors). The crux of our argument is that, although women have shown increasing interest in their professional life (by their proportion in the labor force, higher levels of education attained and increase of the average age for starting a family), they do not receive equivalent career benefits. The implications for economic activities are twofold: an important source for recruiting managers is ignored and part of the labor force can become unmotivated due to existent/perceived discrimination.

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