News

Pay gap between men and women is due to lack of female applications globally, suggests McGill's Desautels Faculty of Management

Published: 22 August 2012

Women are underrepresented in high-paying jobs because they are not applying for them, rather than as a result of direct employer discrimination, research from Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, reveals.

... Roxana Barbulescu, professor of organizational behavious at the Desautels faculty of management at McGill University, said: "Women are taking themselves out of the running for certain jobs. When they evaluate different possible career tracks they already have the assumption that their applications may be unsuccessful. This is combined with a preference for jobs with better work-life balances and a lack of identity with more stereotypically masculine jobs, such as you may find in the finance industry. In a sense they pre-empt what they think the employers' decision will be, and opt-out first. "

Read full article: HR Magazine, August 22, 2012

Back to top