The analysis of gender and social policy

Traditionally, social policy research has been concerned with the provision of state services or transfers to reduce individuals’ dependence on market incomes (e.g. Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990). In the last decades, however, feminist scholars have pointed out that this conceptualisation ignores and implicitly relies on the care work carried out by women in the home for no pay. Accordingly, they have argued for the integration of state policies related to reproduction and care into social policy analysis (e.g. Orloff, Reference Orloff1993; Lister, Reference Lister1997).

Scholars of the welfare state have taken up some (but not all) of the themes identified by feminists for ‘gendering’ social policy analysis (Orloff, Reference Orloff2009a). One body of literature highlights the importance of women’s increased employment for explaining welfare state restructuring and women’s greater poverty risks under post-industrialism. According to this literature, women’s mass entry into employment and the care deficit resulting from the decline of the stay-at-home mother have created a set of so-called ‘new social risks’ (e.g. Bonoli, Reference Bonoli2005). These ‘new’ risks include lone parenthood and conflicts between caring for family members and employment, which arise most acutely for women due to the gendered division of family responsibilities. Women’s disproportionate care responsibilities also mean they are more likely than men to deviate from full-time, continuous employment, which exposes them to the additional new social risk of inadequate social security coverage. For instance, part-time work and career interruptions, together with women’s greater representation in low-paying occupations and sectors, often result in reduced pension entitlements in old age and an associated greater risk of income poverty for female pensioners (e.g. Bonoli, Reference Bonoli2003).

A related framing within mainstream comparative welfare state research that also attends to gender is the social investment literature. Again, addressing the ‘trade-off’ between motherhood and employment is the central gendered issue (Jenson, Reference Jenson2015). This literature argues that stimulating fertility is necessary for preventing a demographic ‘crisis’ given population ageing and increased longevity. Proponents of social investment additionally argue that mobilising women into employment is critical for reducing childhood poverty and expanding the tax base given pressures on ‘old’ social risk policies, particularly pensions and healthcare (e.g. Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen2009; van Kersbergen and Hemerijck, Reference van Kersbergen and Hemerijck2012). Consequently, Scandinavian countries are often portrayed as ‘women-friendly’ on account of their universal, high-quality childcare services and ‘activating’ parental leaves, which keep women attached to the labour market throughout motherhood (e.g. Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1999, Reference Esping-Andersen2009; Korpi et al., Reference Korpi, Ferrarini and Englund2013). English-speaking countries occupy a middling position, while Continental countries are considered gender equality ‘laggards’ (p. 23): here, inadequate work-family policies push lower-educated women out of the labour market, producing class disparities in maternal employment rates (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen2009).

Nevertheless, certain studies have questioned the idolisation of Scandinavian countries as role models for gender equality by highlighting a welfare state ‘paradox’ (Mandel and Semyonov, Reference Mandel and Semyonov2005, Reference Mandel and Semyonov2006): while public provision of family policies and a large public sector enable women’s employment, they also make it harder for women to progress to more lucrative managerial positions. State provision of health, education, and child and elder care creates jobs that attract mostly women, meaning they are less likely to compete for (better-paid) private-sector jobs. And by enabling women to take career breaks and reduce their working hours, generous family policies – especially long maternity leaves – result in losses to women’s human capital and skills as well as missed opportunities for development and on-the-job experience. Furthermore, by increasing the likelihood that women will withdraw or reduce their labour for childbearing and caregiving purposes, family policies make it rational for employers to discriminate against women when it comes to hiring, training, and promotions. This is especially relevant for highly skilled jobs, as replacement workers can be harder to find. Conversely, in Anglo-Saxon countries, less generous family policies, alongside a history of extensive anti-discrimination and equal-opportunity legislation, achieve a greater proportion of women in managerial positions (e.g. O’Connor et al., Reference O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver1999). So, we see that despite some desegregation across Scandinavian labour markets since the late-1990s (e.g. Ellingsæter, Reference Ellingsæter2013), women’s share of middle and senior management stood at 33 per cent on average across the five Nordic countries in 2017 compared with 40 per cent in the United States (International Labour Organisation, 2018).

What about women’s share of board and executive jobs?

However, as Korpi et al. (Reference Korpi, Ferrarini and Englund2013) highlight, these cross-national patterns in women’s share of managerial positions do not hold when we zoom in on the very top board and executive levels. Rather, Scandinavian countries are now leaders when it comes to women’s representation on company boards. For instance, women held 40 per cent of board seats on average across the largest publicly listed corporations in Norway in 2018 (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2019). The corresponding figure for the United States was 22 per cent (Catalyst, 2017). Yet, when we focus on women’s representation among CEO positions, we see that stalled progress is common to all countries. Women accounted for just six of the 117 CEOs of the largest Scandinavian publicly listed companies in 2018 (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2019); similarly, only 6 per cent of US Fortune 500 companies had a female CEO (Catalyst, 2017). Thus, as paradox theory argues, women in less family-friendly welfare states like the US seemingly find it easier to reach managerial positions, since their caregiving role is not as institutionalised; but the empirical data indicate they will find it just as difficult as their Scandinavian counterparts, if not harder, to progress to key leadership positions at the board and executive levels.

Studies from across the social psychology, sociology of gender and gender in management literatures suggest that ‘straightforward gender bias’ (Güngör and Biernat, Reference Güngör and Biernat2009) – i.e. discrimination against women based on gender and its associated stereotypes, rather than motherhood or women’s (assumed) parental status – is at the root of women’s persistent underrepresentation at the very top of the labour market. Despite changing norms and antidiscrimination legislation, (unfounded) cultural stereotypes regarding gender differences in leadership make it harder for women to access jobs offering higher status, pay, and power. In reviewing evidence from 40 studies conducted across a range of institutional contexts, Koenig et al. (Reference Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell and Ristikari2011) find that traits stereotypically ascribed to men continue to be associated with the characteristics considered important for successful leadership (e.g. competitiveness, ambition). Conversely, traits stereotypically attributed to women (e.g. being ‘nice’, submissiveness) are widely regarded as incompatible with leadership. Such ‘lack of fit’ (Heilman, Reference Heilman1983) or ‘incongruity’ (Eagly and Karau, Reference Eagly and Karau2002) between women’s assumed competencies and the requirements of leadership produce greater expectations of failure and lower expectations of success among recruiters evaluating women for board and executive positions, regardless of actual qualifications, skills or experiences.

In turn, women may be less inclined to put themselves forward for leadership positions. Simply being aware of stereotypes makes us more likely to conform to them, as we inherently crave other people’s approval (‘stereotype threat’) (Steele and Aronson, Reference Steele and Aronson1995). For instance, Brands and Fernandez-Mateo (Reference Brands and Fernandez-Mateo2017) found that women who had previously been rejected for an executive position were twice as likely as previously rejected men to refrain from reapplying for an executive position at the same company. This is arguably also indicative of women’s greater proclivity to avoid competitive environments than men (e.g. Flory et al., Reference Flory, Leibbrandt and List2015), which is rooted in gender differences in early-age socialisation (e.g. Sutter and Glätzle-Rützler, Reference Sutter and Glätzle-Rützler2015).

Certain features of organisational hiring and promotion procedures for top-level jobs can additionally place women at a systemic disadvantage (Ibarra et al., Reference Ibarra, Ely and Kolb2013). Particularly problematic is the reliance of recruitment to executive and board positions on personal recommendations, often from (male) individuals already in these jobs (Eagly and Carli, Reference Eagly and Carli2007). According to ‘homosocial reproduction’ theory, we typically favour members from the same group as us (Kanter, Reference Kanter1977). Hence, men in board and executive positions tend to put forward other men. The importance of informal social networks for recruiting board members and executives can also disadvantage women, since these networks tend to comprise mainly men and centre around ‘masculine’ activities, such as hunting or golf, making it harder for women to access them (e.g. Eagly and Carli, Reference Eagly and Carli2007; Dhir, Reference Dhir2015).

But even when selection processes for board and executive roles are transferred to external search firms – so-called ‘head-hunters’ – they are not always subject to standardised criteria or formalised testing. For instance, one cross-national study of head-hunters found that most picked candidates based on ‘gut feeling’ or intuition (Tienari et al., Reference Tienari, Meriläinen, Holgersson and Bendl2013). Such a lack of standardised criteria for selecting candidates can disadvantage women, as decision-makers may unintentionally favour a ‘typical’ (i.e. male) candidate, even if a ‘non-typical’ candidate (i.e. a woman) is equally qualified (Uhlmann and Cohen, Reference Uhlmann and Cohen2005). This is not helped by findings that head-hunters tend to pick candidates for board and executive positions from the pool of those (mostly men) who are already working in similar roles. A study of one UK-based executive search firm found that women comprised only 11 per cent of candidates on the firm’s books (Fernandez-Mateo and Fernandez, Reference Fernandez-Mateo and Fernandez2016).

The ‘trickle-down’ benefits of gender diversity in top jobs for addressing gendered social risk

At first glance, women’s disadvantaged access to board and executive roles may seem beyond the remit of social policy analysis. Yet, there is evidence to suggest that achieving a ‘critical mass’ of women in these key leadership positions may benefit less advantaged women in lower-level jobs in ways that are relevant to the study of gender and risks to welfare. Empirical research on the impact of the gender composition of board and executive roles on subordinate female employees’ experiences and employment outcomes remains patchy, mainly because of a dearth of adequate large-scale datasets (Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey, Reference Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey2012; Huffman, Reference Huffman, Connerley and Wu2016). Nevertheless, literature from across various social science disciplines suggests that women in board and executive roles may act as ‘agents of change’ in pushing for organisational policies, practices, and cultures that improve the female-friendliness of workplaces (Cohen and Huffman, Reference Cohen and Huffman2007). As suggested by social psychological theories of homosocial reproduction (Kanter, Reference Kanter1977) and same-gender preference (Gorman, Reference Gorman2005), gender creates a common interest that motivates individuals in decision-making positions to promote the interests of same-sex subordinates. For example, almost all of the female board-members and CEOs interviewed by Konrad et al. (Reference Konrad, Kramer and Erkut2008) were taking action to promote women’s careers within the firm, from mentoring to requesting diversity reports.

There are two main mechanisms through which the benefits of gender diversity in top jobs can trickle down to other women within the firm. On the one hand, women in executive and board positions may actively create opportunities for junior women. For instance, in line with theories of homosocial reproduction, a study of hiring practices across US law firms found that a woman’s odds of being hired were 13 per cent higher in firms led by a female partner than a male partner (Gorman, Reference Gorman2005). Senior women can also act as mentors for junior women, providing access to networks, training them in firm-specific skills, and directing them to developmental opportunities (e.g. Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey, Reference Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey2012; Gagliarducci and Paserman, Reference Gagliarducci, Paserman, Polachek, Tatsiramos and Zimmermann2015).

On the other hand, women in executive and board positions may instigate cultural shifts within the firm that benefit other women, including those with whom female board members and executives have no direct contact. For instance, studies have shown that women managers are often key champions of programmes designed to increase workplace diversity, such as diversity training measures and specialist networks for women and other identity groups disadvantaged by white male privilege (Dobbin et al., Reference Dobbin, Kim and Kalev2011). Moreover, empirical evidence has shown an association between a higher proportion of women in authority positions and the provision of family-friendly policies and flexible-working options at the firm level, such as work-at-home options, on-site care facilities, and parental leaves beyond statutory minima (e.g. Dancaster and Baird, Reference Dancaster and Baird2016). These workplace policies can support women further down the company’s hierarchy – including those at the lowest levels – to keep their jobs and progress within the firm following childbirth or the emergence of other family responsibilities (e.g. a parent becomes frail). (Relatedly, firm-level paternity leaves that supplement or substitute for state provision can encourage men in the firm to take on a greater share of domestic tasks in the home). At the same time, through enabling women’s employment continuity, firm-level family policies can improve women’s access to employment and earnings-related state benefits, including pensions, as well as their abilities to build up adequate occupational pension pots. This in turn provides further protection against the gendered risk of inadequate social security coverage in old age.

Bringing more women into board and executive roles can also help to disrupt organisational cultures that allow sexual harassment to persist. Workplace sexual harassment is inherently gendered: although men can be subject to it and are not always the perpetrators, most sexual harassment is committed against women by men (McLaughlin et al., Reference McLaughlin, Uggen and Blackstone2012). Recent surveys in the UK suggest that around half of working women have experienced sexual harassment in the last year, while the #MeToo movement has highlighted how prevalent the problem is for women at all levels of the labour market and across multiple industries, from entertainment to teaching, healthcare, and hospitality. Yet, the underrepresentation of women among board and executive roles may result in a lack of awareness among a company’s leadership team of the extent of sexual harassment within the firm (Women and Equalities Committee, 2018). Relatedly, it may impede the provision of sexual harassment policies at the firm level that meet the needs of women (and others) who are harassed (Bell et al., Reference Bell, McLaughlin and Sequeira2002a). This is because women in leadership positions are more likely than their male counterparts to have experienced sexual harassment personally. There is also evidence that women are more likely than men to understand ‘borderline’ behaviours, such as sexual jokes, persistent requests for dates, or inappropriate comments about one’s sex life, as harassment and possibly frightening rather than to dismiss them as innocuous or even flattering (e.g. Bell et al., Reference Bell, McLaughlin and Sequeira2002a; Bitton and Shaul, 2016). Thus, as Konrad et al. (Reference Konrad, Kramer and Erkut2008) found, female board members may act as ‘protagonists’ in workplace sexual harassment cases, in that they encourage organisations to take women’s claims seriously.

Accordingly, redistributing the gendered division of power at the top of the labour market can contribute to safeguarding women’s ‘body rights’, which include protection from sexual harassment (e.g. O’Connor et al., Reference O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver1999; Brush, Reference Brush2002). Body rights tend not to be considered in mainstream analyses of the welfare state. However, as feminists have long argued, ‘defamilialisation’, which is concerned with how well-protected individuals are from dependence on a partner, is a precondition for women’s full citizenship, and paid employment is a major route through which women’s economic autonomy outside the home is achieved (Orloff, Reference Orloff1993; Lister, Reference Lister, Baldwin and Falkingham1994; O’Connor et al., Reference O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver1999). Yet, as MacKinnon (Reference MacKinnon1979) argues, sexual harassment undercuts such autonomy. Harassment reduces women to sexual objects, thereby contradicting their other identities, such as competent worker (Quinn, Reference Quinn2002). It upholds male domination of and control over women’s sexuality and bodies, providing a mechanism through which women’s subordination and unequal power relations in the workplace and society at large are maintained (Hakim, Reference Hakim2016). Particularly when a woman is sexually harassed by a manager or senior co-worker, her financial dependence on a man – in this case, her boss rather than her partner – is sealed on a sexual basis, and sexual demands can become terms or conditions of her employment and career progression. Sexual harassment therefore undermines the emancipatory potential of employment for women (MacKinnon, Reference MacKinnon1979). It can also result in tangible economic penalties. For instance, McLaughlin et al. (Reference McLaughlin, Uggen and Blackstone2017) found that women who had experienced workplace sexual harassment were more likely to quit or change jobs than non-harassed women and to face difficulties in meeting their financial commitments 12 months later. Consequently, the occurrence of sexual harassment potentially diminishes women’s presence in the labour market (Elman, Reference Elman1996), career progression and – in extreme cases – their abilities to support themselves independently of a partner.

Besides actively changing a company’s policies and culture, women on boards and in executive management also offer a powerful symbol for other women in the organisation. Seeing others ‘like them’ – i.e. women – in the top positions signals that women can be successful in and are valued by the firm (e.g. Ely, Reference Ely1995; Konrad et al., Reference Konrad, Kramer and Erkut2008). In turn, the self-esteem of women further down the organisational hierarchy may improve, thereby encouraging more to seek promotion. For example, Bertrand et al. (Reference Bertrand, Black, Jensen and Lleras-Muney2019) found that the career expectations of young women in business had improved following the introduction of a 40 per cent quota for women on corporate boards in Norway, with many believing the legislation would improve their future earnings and chances of reaching higher-level positions. Similarly, experimental studies have found that women are more likely to put themselves forward for competitive and leadership positions upon exposure to female role models (e.g. Meier et al., Reference Meier, Niessen-Ruenzi and Ruenzi2018).

It is through these mechanisms that gender diversity in board and executive positions can translate into better pay and career outcomes for subordinate women within the firm. Indeed, research has shown that increasing the proportion of women on a company’s leadership team is associated with a reduced concentration of women in feminised, lower-paying jobs further down the company, as well as women’s increased representation in more lucrative roles (Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey, Reference Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey2012; Stainback et al., Reference Stainback, Kleiner and Skaggs2016). Research has also shown a positive association between women’s share of board and executive positions and female earnings at lower levels of the organisation. For instance, in a longitudinal study of private-sector firms in Portugal, Cardoso and Winter-Ebmer (Reference Cardoso and Winter-Ebmer2010) found that women earned a 3 per cent wage premium when more than half of a company’s leadership team were women. The positive trickle-down effects on gender wage gaps are strongest when women reach board and executive levels (Cohen and Huffman, Reference Cohen and Huffman2007; Hirsch, Reference Hirsch2013; Halldén et al., Reference Halldén, Säve-Söderbergh and Rosén2018). Elvira and Cohen (Reference Elvira and Cohen2001) suggest that whereas women in lower-level management and supervisory positions may lack the power to influence a company’s policies or environment, women in board and executive positions may be able to influence firms to monitor and undertake actions to reduce gender pay inequalities or even have a say in the establishment of organisational pay rates (e.g. Hultin and Szulkin, Reference Hultin and Szulkin2003).

Such shifts in corporate culture can mean that the benefits of having more women in the top positions trickle all the way down to women at the bottom of the company. Indeed, Tate and Yang (Reference Tate and Yang2015) found that the gender wage gap among new hires to US companies halved when the hiring firm was female-led rather than male-led. The positive impact of female leadership on the relative wages of women was strongest for women in the middle of the wage distribution; however, it extended to the lowest-positioned women, too. In helping to narrow gender wage gaps, increasing the share of women in board seats and executive suites can contribute to combatting the various social risks (inadequate social security coverage, economic dependence on a male partner) associated with women’s lower average incomes and which arise most acutely for the lowest-paid women.²

Limitations and caveats

The idea that women in board and executive positions will influence the adoption and expansion of female-friendly company policies and practices assumes they have the power to do so (Cohen and Huffman, Reference Cohen and Huffman2007). On this, evidence suggests that women are only able to effect organisational change when they comprise a ‘critical mass’ of around 25-50 per cent of the leadership team (Konrad et al., Reference Konrad, Kramer and Erkut2008; Torchia et al., Reference Torchia, Calabrò and Huse2011). ‘Social contact’ theory (Kanter, Reference Kanter1977) posits that as sex ratios in decision-making positions approach a balance, differences between majority-group members (men) and minority-group members (women) become less salient. Consequently, women board members and executives are less prone to being denigrated as ‘tokens’ and may feel less pressure to minimise their differences from men or reduce their visibility by not ‘speaking up’. In turn, they are empowered to exert meaningful influence over organisational policies and environments (e.g. Dreher, Reference Dreher2003; Stainback et al., Reference Stainback, Kleiner and Skaggs2016).

Still, some literature suggests that even when women leaders have power and authority over a firm’s policies and recruiting decisions, they may not necessarily be motivated to act in ways that benefit other women. Instead, they may behave as ‘Queen Bees’: in wanting to be seen as individuals in their own right, rather than as representatives of their gender, and assimilate with other (mostly male) leaders, women in leadership positions may try to distance themselves from ‘women’s’ issues (Maume, Reference Maume2011). Yet, again, numbers are important here. Derks et al. (Reference Derks, van Laar and Ellemers2016) suggest that achieving a ‘substantial’ (p. 465) number of women in authority positions can mitigate ‘Queen Bee’ behaviour by reducing the salience of gender and associated ‘categorisation threat’, whereby women fear being disparaged as representatives of their gender. Indeed, Ryan et al. (Reference Ryan, King, Adis, Gulick, Peddie and Hargraves2012) conducted an experiment asking male and female professionals to rate the likelihood that they would provide support and mentorship to subordinates. The researchers found that ‘token’ women, defined as those working in environments in which females comprised less than one-quarter of professionals, were more likely to favour male subordinates over equally qualified female subordinates. In contrast, women working in environments approaching a gender balance offered equal amounts of support to male and female subordinates. Other research has also shown that women are more likely to advocate for women’s issues when surrounded by other women (Dutton et al., Reference Dutton, Ashford, Lawrence and Miner-Rubino2002). As further evidence against the ‘Queen Bee’ phenomenon, interviews with female corporate board members in Norway found strong support for affirmative-action policies designed to redress women’s underrepresentation in senior positions, especially among those who had themselves experienced discrimination personally (e.g. Dhir, Reference Dhir2015).

Even so, contextual factors may magnify or moderate the power of female board members and executives to bring about change. Research on codetermination suggests that larger boards limit the influence of board-level worker representatives on decision-making (Rose and Hagen, Reference Rose and Hagen2019). In a similar way, larger boards may make it harder for women to interact and form coalitions with one another. Furthermore, by allowing greater space for the board to fragment into cliques, larger boards may perpetuate the exclusion of women from informal debates and networking.

Relatedly, the positioning of women within a company’s leadership team matters: if women are concentrated in non-executive board roles but underrepresented in more powerful executive positions, then their influence over a company’s policies and practices will necessarily be curtailed. This is especially pertinent under a two-board system typical of Continental countries, whereby non-executive and executive directors sit separately and non-executive directors’ role is delimited to monitoring and advice. Non-executive directors under this system also tend to be invisible to other workers in the organisation, thereby dampening the potential benefits of women in these positions in terms of their symbolic presence (Bozhinov et al., Reference Bozhinov, Koch and Schank2018). Consequently, ensuring that women are adequately represented at the most senior and executive levels, especially under a two-board structure, is important for ensuring that women leaders have adequate power and visibility to be ‘agents of change’.

The occupational family policy literature additionally suggests that the extent to which demands for female-friendly firm-level policies are met may well vary between industries and countries. Employers are more likely to implement organisational family policies when there is a strong ‘business case’ in terms of productivity and the recruitment and retention of valuable workers (den Dulk et al., Reference den Dulk, Peters and Poutsma2012). Thus, studies show that firms competing for highly skilled workers with transferable skills (e.g. professional and financial services) are more likely to implement occupational family policies to attract and retain the best workers. Conversely, in industries dominated by low-skilled labour with high turnover (e.g. hospitality and food services), or industry-specific skills which limit workers’ occupational choices and mobility (e.g. manufacturing), employers may be less responsive to demands for firm-level family policies (e.g. Seeleib-Kaiser and Fleckenstein, Reference Seeleib-Kaiser and Fleckenstein2009; Wiß, Reference Wiß2017). At the country-level, den Dulk et al. (Reference den Dulk, Peters and Poutsma2012) find that high female employment rates, low unemployment, and extensive public family policies exert institutional pressures on employers to supplement public policies with generous firm-level family policies and working-time flexibility.

Research further indicates that gender intersects with other dimensions of a woman’s background and identity to both complicate and help explain her motivations and decisions as a female leader. For instance, Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey (Reference Kurtulus and Tomaskovic-Devey2012) found that women leaders tend to promote other women who are ‘like them’ in terms of other demographics (e.g. race), too. Therefore, future research and policies should consider the distinct disadvantages (and, in some cases, advantages) experienced by minority-ethnic women, disabled women, queer women, and other women at the intersections of multiple minority groups in accessing the most powerful labour market positions. An intersectional approach can help make sure that a diversity of women, and not just the most privileged groups, benefit from increased female leadership in the labour market.