This file was prepared for electronic distribution by the inforM staff.
Questions or comments should be directed to inform-editor@umail.umd.edu.


                           METHODOLOGY

All of the reasons why women are not as frequently found in upper
management as men may not be immediately obvious. By definition, if
a glass ceiling exists, it is invisible and therefore difficult to
establish. A look at the occupational and grade distribution of
Federal employees suggests that women may be underrepresented in
certain occupations and at upper grade levels, but not why this
would be so. Is it because women have chosen not to move into those
occupations or grade levels, or because their movement is blocked?
A look at how the distribution has changed over time shows that
more women are at higher grade levels than in the past, but not
whether their movement into these levels is occurring as fast as it
could or should be. An analysis of promotion rates may tell us
whether women are being promoted as often as men, but not when, if
ever, women will hold a share of management-level jobs
proportionate to their participation in the workforce. Rapid
promotion of women, for example, might be offset by an equally
rapid turnover rate among women.

Answering the question as to whether women have equal opportunity
for advancement in the Federal Govemment requires an understanding
of the factors which account for successful career advancement in
Federal agencies. Are women and men affected differently by these
factors? What slows down or stops the progress of an upwardly
mobile employee? Is the scarcity of women in management in the
Government explained by discrimination or by demographic
differences, or are there more subtle biases that act to discourage
their advancement?

Because of the complexity of issues related to career advancement,
we determined that no single source of data would be sufficient for
a thorough analysis of whether women face a glass ceiling in
Government. Therefore, this study is based on three sources of
information:

     * Data from OPM's Central Personnel Data File;

     * Focus groups of mid- and senior-level Federal employees; and

     * A Governmentwide employee survey.

The scope of this analysis is limited to executive branch employees
in white-collar occupations.

                   Central Personnel Data File

The CPDF is a computerized data base with information on
approximately 2 million civilian employees. Employees of the U.S.
Postal Service and other agencies exempt from personnel reporting
requirements, such as the US. Central Intelligence Agency, are not
included in the data base.

We asked OPM to give us two kinds of information from the CPDF:

     * The numbers of men and women by grade level and occupational
     group for various times beginning with FY 1974. These
     "snap-shots" show how men and women are distributed in the
     workforce, and how the distribution has changed since 1974. 

     * Promotion rates, turnover rates, and transfer rates by
     occupational category for men and women, averaged for two
     3-year periods--fiscal years 1978-80 and 1988-90. We used
     these average rates to develop a workforce planning model
     which projects how the representation of women by grade level
     will change over the next 25 years if the observed rates of
     change remain constant.

                          Focus Groups

In order to obtain a general understanding of the factors which
affect the career advancement process in the Federal Government, we
arranged for focus groups at seven departments and agencies.[l2]
Some 144 people participated in 19 focus groups in the summer of
1991. Participants were men and women in grades GS/GM 13-15 and
members of the Senior Executive Service. It was not our intention
to draw firm conclusions about the career development process
Governmentwide from the views expressed by focus group
participants. Rather, we were interested in learning about the
experiences and perspectives of a variety of individuals in an
assortment of occupations and agencies.

In the focus groups we asked participants open-ended questions
about their own careers, their perceptions of factors which may
affect advancement, and their views as to how the experiences of
men and women might differ. 

                             Survey

While focus group participants gave us valuable information about
their own experiences and perceptions, we did not know to what
extent these experiences and perceptions were common among Federal
employees. To broaden our perspective, we developed a written
questionnaire (see app. 1) after the focus group discussions were
completed. Many of the issues explored in the questionnaire came
from the observations made by focus group participants. The
questionnaire was administered in the fall of 1991 to a sample of
about 13,000 full-time, permanent, white-collar Federal employees
in grades GS/GM 9-15 and in the SES. We used a stratified random
sampling technique to ensure representation by grade range, agency,
and sex. Some 8,408 surveys were returned (4,827 from men, 3,443
from women, and 138 from respondents who did not state their
gender), for a very satisfactory response rate of 66 percent.

The survey was designed to address questions such as the following:

     * What factors predict greater career advancement?

     * Are there meaningful differences in the qualifications of
     men and women at the same grade level?

     * Do men and women share the same level of commitment to their
     jobs and interest in advancement?

     * To what extent do employees believe that they are treated
     unfairly or differently than colleagues of the opposite sex?

We believe that collectively, the quantitative and qualitative data
assembled from these three sources provide us with a comprehensive
understanding of the career advancement process in the Federal
Government, and the nature of barriers, if any, which impede the
progress of women.