Once in the Door: Gender, Tryouts, and the Initial Salaries of Managers

Although women pursue managerial credentials at nearly the same rate as men, gender disparities in wages exist because of the shortfall in wages women sustain relative to men at the onset of their careers. This article develops a tryout approach to test for the presence of demand-side contributions to initial wage inequality while also developing and testing theory on why it may be lessened through internships. Using detailed data on graduates from an elite management program from 2009–2010, our analyses reveal that internships are associated with the gap in men’s and women’s initial salaries. For men, there is no di erence in salary o ers from employers where an internship occurs versus one where an internship does not occur. However, women receive higher salaries from employers where an internship first takes place. Keywords: inequality; gender; organizations; labor market

Internships Predict Women's Salaries but not Men's Salaries for Graduates in Computer Science and Engineering

While the existence of the gender wage gap is well-documented, including in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), the labor market pathways that correspond to the gap being wide versus narrow in workforce jobs are less well understood. Using data from an NSF-funded longitudinal survey of graduates of engineering and computer science programs from 27 institutions (Nsample=559), we find, controlling for human capital characteristics, that women’s salaries in their first workforce jobs are -7% versus men’s. However, after women and men take one labor market pathway—a tryout—the gender wage gap is non-existent in the offers they accept (women’s salaries are +0.6% versus men’s). For scholars this study illustrates how tryouts may be both an artifact of gender inequality and a way to challenge it