Equality of Opportunity? Sex, Race, and Occupational Advantages in Promotion to Top-Level Management

Abstract

Abstract We examine how occupation, race, and sex interact to affect employees’ probability of promotion to the upper reaches of federal agencies’ personnel hierarchies. Three interrelated questions draw our attention. First, we are interested in whether employees who are members of an agency’s dominant occupational group are more likely to be promoted to Senior Executive Service (SES) positions than employees who are members of non-dominant occupational groups. Second, we are interested in whether any such occupational advantage, if it exists, is enjoyed equally by white men, white women, men of color, and women of color. Third, we examine whether the magnitude of dominant occupational advantages varies between agencies. We use rich, micro-level personnel data that span the years 1979–2013 to address these questions. Our results suggest that members of dominant occupations are more likely to be promoted than members of non-dominant occupations; that white men, white women, men of color, and women of color tend to benefit from this advantage equally; and that occupational advantages vary considerably between agencies.