Sex Discrimination and Female Top Managers: Evidence from China

We examine whether sex discrimination contributes to the underrepresentation of female executives in large corporations. China’s strong cultural preference for sons has made newborn boys greatly outnumber newborn girls. Using the male-to-female sex ratio at birth as the proxy for discrimination agai...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Gao, Huasheng (Author) ; Lin, Yaheng (Author) ; Ma, Yujing (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2016
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2016, Volume: 138, Issue: 4, Pages: 683-702
Further subjects:B Sex ratio
B J71
B G30
B China
B Turnover
B Executive Compensation
B Sex discrimination
B Gender
B Female executives
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Summary:We examine whether sex discrimination contributes to the underrepresentation of female executives in large corporations. China’s strong cultural preference for sons has made newborn boys greatly outnumber newborn girls. Using the male-to-female sex ratio at birth as the proxy for discrimination against women, we find that firms headquartered in more discriminatory areas hire fewer female executives. Even conditional on a woman reaching an executive position, she faces a higher likelihood of dismissal and receives lower compensation than her male counterparts. Overall, our findings suggest that sex discrimination plays an important role in preventing women from climbing the corporate ladder.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2892-x