Male Hierarchies and Gender-balanced Boards

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to examine whether the established fact that men by far outnumber women in leading positions is an inherent unintentional characteristic of a hierarchy where appointments happen one by one on an individual basis, as opposed to boards where the members are appointed as a group. The sample consists of those appointed to the hierarchies as well as the boards of 36 state universities in Sweden. The main finding is that significantly more men are appointed in hierarchies than to group-composed boards. When the gendered distribution of those in leading positions becomes fully apparent, the last and final position in the hierarchy is significantly more often given to a woman. However, these women are much older than their male counterparts, a fact that makes it harder for them to reach the final step of the ladder. The article concludes with a discussion of whether the higher probability of appointing a woman as vice-president when both chair and president are men is a fair acknowledgement of an unfair gender distribution, or if there are other possible explanations.