Leaning in: is higher confidence the key to women's career advancement?
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: Women's lack of confidence is commonly regarded as a key reason why women lag behind men's career outcomes. This paper interrogates this claim by examining the empirical link between an individual's confidence and job promotion prospects through a gender lens. We use nationally-representative data for 7533 individuals collected in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey in 2013. Confidence is captured by a psychometric survey instrument, Achievement Motivation, which is dually comprised of 'hope for success' and 'fear of failure'. Using Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we detect that higher hope for success is linked to a higher likelihood of job promotion, but only amongst men. This finding provides no evidence to support the widespread advice commonly given to women that they need to 'lean in' and show more confidence as the mechanism to close gender gaps in the workplace.
Author: Leonora Risse
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3080908200