Simulating Gender Stratification

Abstract

The simulation of promotional competitions in corporations described herein allows comparisons of suggested reasons for the paucity of women in the highest level of corporate management. Runs with small, medium and large-sized companies all give similar results. The strongest effect is evidenced when men are given a bonus in performance evaluations. Similar stratification is observed when men's scores are drawn from a distribution with increased variance. Other explanations (increased female attrition, career delays for women, line-staff divisions, and external labor market) do not, by themselves produce strong gender stratification, but could add to that produced by biased evaluations.Glass Ceiling, Gender Stratification, Promotion, Performance Evaluation Bias, Computer Simulation