Weakening the glass ceiling: does organizational growth reduce gender segregation in the upper tiers of Danish local government?

Abstract

The theory of representative bureaucracy highlights gender segregation in the public sector and its detrimental implications for public policy outcomes. Focusing attention on organisational responses to this protracted problem, we provide evidence on whether organizational growth improves gender integration in the upper echelons of the public sector. An evaluation of the relationship between new hires and gender representation within the management tiers of Danish local government reveals an association between the recruitment of additional employees and improved gender integration. This is particularly pronounced for public organizations that employ fewer women. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Perceived Changes in Leadership Behavior during Formal Leadership Education

“…As can be seen in Table 2, women are a minority in the superior leaders’ employees’ group and a clear majority in the subordinate employee group. This corresponds to the gender ratio found in recent studies (Krøtel et al, 2019; Stritch & Villadsen, 2018). The respondents’ ages ranged from 20 to 74, with a mean of 49 years.…”

How Bureaucratic Representation Affects Public Organizational Performance: AMeta‐Analysis

“…Applying the terminology to the sphere of representative bureaucracy, the outstanding effects of gender, race, and/or ethnicity as examined in our meta-analysis substantiate the relevance of demographic identity salience, albeit conceptualized in sociology, in the inquiry of representative bureaucracy. The high resilience of the stereotypes of certain demographics such as gender, race, and ethnicity makes them hard to adjust over time, which further retains the salience of these demographics in the representative bureaucracy as well as the importance of these demographic identity groups to the relevant social issues (Wade-Olson 2019; Gilad and Alon-Barkat 2018;Shjarback et al 2017;Wilsson and Carlos 2014;Wilkins and Keiser 2007;2006;Fernandez 2020;Fernandez et al 2018;Hawes 2013;Jacobson et al 2010;Krøtel et al 2019;Liang et al 2020). The resulting demographic identity salience produces more significant effects of the bureaucratic representation of these groups on the operations of related public policies or programs.…”

Kulturelle Vielfalt der öffentlichen Verwaltung

“…Beispielsweise zeigt eine aktuelle Studie für die öffentliche Verwaltung in Dänemark, dass die Beschäftigung von Frauen in expandierenden Behörden steigt. Dieser positive Zusammenhang findet sich aber in erster Linie in Organisationen, welche bisher von deutlicher Unterrepräsentation gekennzeichnet waren (Krøtel et al 2018). Die öffentliche Verwaltung in Deutschland war in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten durch unterschiedliche Phasen des Wachstums und der Schrumpfung gekennzeichnet (Altis 2018).…”

“…Zukünftige Analysen sollten diese Zusammenhänge auch unter Verwendung weitergehender statistischer Verfahren wie z. B. der seemingly unrelated Regression (Andrews/Ashworth 2013) oder dem Verfahren der fractional logit-Modelle (Krøtel et al 2018) testen.…”