Gender Promotion Gaps in Knowledge Work: The Role of Task Assignment in Teams

By Çağatay Bircan, Guido Friebel and Tristan Stahl

Using rich data on personnel records, work assignments, and performance in a financial institution, we uncover the mechanisms leading to promotion gaps in knowledge teamwork. There is a substantial promotion gap for women in early careers. Analysing over 10,000 investment projects, we find that assignments to project team leaderships (a “promotable” task) are crucial in explaining the gaps in promotions and affect long-term careers. We find causal evidence that male supervisors favour male bankers. A survey among employees indicates that women perceive to be disadvantaged in the assignments of tasks, but they do not dif fer in aspirations and demand for these roles.