TURNOVER AND PROMOTION OF LAWYERS - AN INQUIRY INTO GENDER DIFFERENCES

This paper analyzes the turnover and promotion of male and female lawy ers, using data on two cohorts of lawyers; one which entered law firms between 1969 and 1973, and the other entering between 1980 and 1983. This study considers whether law firm promotion decisions have differe d for women, and if so, whether these differences have declined over t ime. A competing risks duration model is employed to capture the link between the lawyer's decision to stay or leave and the firm's decision to grant or deny promotion. We find that over the entire sample perio d, women are considerably less likely to be promoted and slightly more likely to leave the firm without being promoted. However, we also fin d that the parametric differential between men and women in partnershi p hazards has been reduced substantially, and in the most general of o ur specifications, eliminated across the two cohorts. In contrast, the gap between male and female job turnover rates does not appear to cha nge over time. We find that the gap between males and females in the c umulative partnership rate at seven years of experience falls from 32 to 14 percent. The turnover gap increases about 0.2 percent, with fema les slightly more likely to exit from the firm in the later period.