AND THEN THERE WERE MORE - THE EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL SEX COMPOSITION ON THE HIRING AND PROMOTION OF MANAGERS

We study how organizational sex composition influences the intraorgani zational mobility of male and female managers. We rest hypotheses link ing organizational sex composition to hiring and promotion using longi tudinal data on all managers in the California savings and loan indust ry. We find that the impact of sex composition depends on hierarchical level: Nor only does it matter what relative proportions of men and w omen are working in organizations, but it also matters at what levels in the managerial hierarchies they are working. Our findings demonstra te a catch-22 situation: Women are more likely to be hired and promote d into a particular job level when a higher proportion of women are al ready there. The question remains, how can women gain entry into these positions? We also find that women are more likely to be hired and pr omoted when there is a substantial minority of women above the focal j ob level, but not when women constitute the majority in those higher-l evel positions: Hence women in high ranks can sometimes be a force for demographic change. Finally, we find evidence that women are more lik ely to be hired and promoted when higher proportions of women hold pos itions below the focal job level, indicating that gains made by women are nob entirely dissipated by endogenous organizational processes.