Publications
Publications
- 2021
The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap
By: Zoë B. Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia
Abstract
Offices are social places. Employees and managers take coffee breaks together, go to lunch,
hang out over drinks, and talk about family and hobbies. In this study, we show that employees’
social interactions with their managers are advantageous for their careers and that this
phenomenon contributes to the gender pay gap. We use administrative and survey data from a
large financial institution. We estimate the impact of social interactions on career progression
using quasi-random variation induced by the rotation of managers, along with the smoking status
of managers and employees. When male employees who smoke transition to male managers
who smoke, they take breaks with their managers more often and are subsequently promoted at
higher rates. The smoker-to-smoker advantage is not accompanied by any differences in effort
or performance. Moreover, we find that the male-to-male advantage is also only present among
employees who work in close proximity to their managers, limiting the mechanism to channels
requiring face-to-face interaction. The male-to-male advantage explains a third of the gender
gap in promotions at this firm.
Keywords
Career; Promotions; Social Interactions; Networking; Gender; Personal Development and Career; Wages; Social and Collaborative Networks
Citation
Cullen, Zoë B., and Ricardo Perez-Truglia. "The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap." Working Paper, June 2021. (Revise and Resubmit at the American Economic Review.)
Supplemental Information
Online Appendix