This file was prepared for electronic distribution by the inforM staff. Questions or comments should be directed to inform-editor@umail.umd.edu. CAREER ADVANCEMENT IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT What determines who gets ahead and who doesn't in the Government? A number of factors may affect employees' potential for advancement, including their tenure in the Federal workforce, amount of formal education, commitment to the job, and desire for advancement. In addition, studies of private sector promotion processes, such as the one done by the Department of Labor (see footnote 4), have found that an individual's prospect for advancement can be affected by a host of organizational factors such as access to developmental opportunities, significant work assignments, mentors, and networks. Judging from evidence from studies outside the Federal Government, women may often face barriers ranging from overt discrimination to more subtle attitudes and stereotyping that slow their rate of advancement. The focus group and written questionnaire portions of this study looked at the career advancement process in the Federal Government. The statistics reported in this section are based on a representative sample of 8,400 survey responses from executive branch employees, primarily in Professional and Administrative occupations, in grades GS/GM 9-15, and in the SES. To clarify and illustrate some of the patterns found in the survey data, we also referred to the transcripts of our focus group discussions. We have already discussed how the distribution of women in Government is skewed toward the lower end of the grade structure. We would expect, then, that the women in our survey population would, on average, be lower graded than men. In fact, the average grade of women in that population is 11.25, which is significantly lower than the 12.05 average grade of the men we surveyed. Another way to look at advancement is to count the number of promotions beyond GS 7 received by survey respondents who entered Government at the same grade. Out of the maximum possible number of promotions of seven that a survey respondent could have received using this formula, the men have received an average of 3.92 promotions during their Federal career, while the women have received an average of only 3.15 promotions; again a significant difference. What experiences are shared by those who have attained the highest grades, or the greatest number of promotions? Do differences between the experiences of men as a group and women as a group explain why women are less often found in high grades in the Government? Experience and Education An analysis of survey data shows that experience and education are two of the most important factors in career advancement in the Federal Government. Those at the highest grade levels, or with the greatest number of promotions during their Federal careers, tend to be those with the greatest length of Federal service, and those with the most formal education. For most employees, it takes a long time to move up the career ladder. Three quarters of survey respondents currently in GS 13 positions have been in the Government at least 12 years. Similarly, about the same proportion of senior executives started their Federal careers 20 or more years ago. To the extent that advancement depends on experience, women in the Government are at a disadvantage. According to CPDF data, the average length of Government service for men is 15.1 years and for women, 13.7 years, in Professional and Administrative jobs. We also found a positive relationship between high grade levels and education. This is not to say that completing levels of education is always a necessary or sufficient condition for advancement. There are senior executives who don't have college degrees, just as there are employees in lower graded jobs who have advanced degrees. Nevertheless, on average, Governmentwide, there is a tendency for those in top-level jobs to have more formal education than those in lower level jobs. Table 3 shows the average grade by highest degree earned, for survey respondents; i.e., those who have reached at least the GS 9 level, and are primarily in Professional and Administrative occupations. Survey data indicate that amount of formal education has been more important for advancement for those employees with a longer length of Government service than those with less service. This is probably because the workforce is attaining higher levels of education, so education has become less of a distinguishing factor among applicants for promotions. While men and women who have worked for the Government for 10 or fewer years have about the same amount of education, this is not true for those with more service. (See table 4) Only about half of the women with 10 to 20 years of Government service, and only one- quarter of the women with more than 20 years of service have a bachelor's degree. Thus, another reason fewer women are seen at top levels in Government is because overall, they have less formal education. Not only are there fewer women in the pool of those with the greatest amount of Government experience, but those women who are in that pool have less formal education than men. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Table 3: Average grade of survey respondents, by highest degree earned Degree Average Grade High School Diploma or Associate of Arts 11.08 Bachelor's Degree 11.94 Master's Degree 12.45 Doctorate 13.40 Professional (e.g., M.D., J.D.) 13.62 ------------------------------------------------------------------ But education and experience only account for a portion of the difference between the average grade of men and women. Table 5 shows the average grades of men and women with the same amount of experience, accounting for differences in education.[15] While these differences in average grade may not seem large, they demonstrate that women have not been treated equitably with regard to promotions during their Federal careers. If women had been treated equitably, there should be no significant difference in the average grades shown in table 5. Over the course of their careers, women currently employed in the Government have received fewer promotions than men with the same length of Government service and the same amount of formal education. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Table 4: Percent of survey respondents with at least a 4-year degree, by length of Government service, and sex Length of Service Women Men Under 5 years 89 84 5-10 years 74 74 10-20 years 48 71 More than 20 years 23 68 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Figure 7 illustrates this point in another way. It shows the distribution of survey participants, by sex, who entered Government at entry-level grades GS 5 or GS 7 with comparable levels of formal education, and who had no more than ten years of Government service at the time of the survey. Overall, the concentration of women is greater at the lower grade levels, and the concentration of men is higher at the upper grade levels. Twice as many men as women have progressed to the GS 13 level. Twenty-one percent of women are in GS 9 jobs, while only 13 percent of men have not yet been promoted beyond that level. Based upon differences in the number of promotions, it is clear that differences in educational attainment and length of service do not account for all of the difference in the distribution of men and women in the Government. We need to look further to explain more of the reason so few women are at the top. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Table 5: Average grade of survey respondents, by length of Government service, and sex, accounting for educational differences Length of Service Women Men Under 5 years 10.80 11.34 5-10 years 11.23 11.61 10-20 years 11.58 11.85 More than 20 years 11.71 12.50 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Figure 7: Differences in Grade Distribution of Comparable Survey Respondents, by Sex* (Percent) Women Men GS-9 21 13 GS-11 37 33 GS-12 29 38 GS/GM-13 6 13 GS/GM-14 2 3 * Chart includes only survey respondents with 10 or fewer years of Government service and at least a 4-year degree, and who entered Government at the GS 5 or GS 7 level. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mobility People in high grades or with more promotions also tend to have relocated geographically more often than those in lower grades or with fewer promotions. This is not surprising, as many agencies have informal or formal requirements for promotion that include experience in both the field and at headquarters. A number of survey respondents commented that they saw requirements for mobility to be a major barrier for themselves or many others who are seeking to advance. The following comment is illustrative: While I plan to pursue promotional opportunities in the future, I believe my limited or lack of mobility will have a significant negative impact on my success. Table 6 shows the average number of relocations made by men and women for the sake of their own careers by grade range. The number of relocations increases as grade level increases. But at any level women have clearly relocated less often than men. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Table 6: Average number of relocations by survey respondents, by grade range and sex Grade Range Women Men GS 9-12 .60 1.01 GS 13-15 .65 1.26 SES .97 1.58 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Overall, survey responses indicate that men are somewhat more likely to be willing to relocate than women. Fifty-eight percent of men and 48 percent of women said they would be willing, at least to some extent, to relocate in order to advance their careers. There are a variety of reasons why fewer women than men are willing to relocate, including that some women have subordinated their own careers to their husbands' careers. But comments made during the focus groups indicate that in many cases, women are not less career oriented but rather have not been asked to relocate, or encouraged to pursue careers that may require relocation, because it was assumed that their careers were subordinate to their husbands'. For example, one focus group participant said: Relocations have always been a problem in many agencies, the concept of career advancement being associated with taking different geographical locations. And I think it's very widespread in most agencies. And there's been an assumption that wives will follow husbands but husbands will not follow wives, and I don't know if it's changing. The possibility that women are less often asked to relocate is to some degree substantiated by the fact that there was no practical difference in the percentage of women (4 percent) and the percentage of men a percent) who reported that they had refused to relocate during their Federal career. There is also some evidence that those who are unable or unwilling to relocate may be perceived as having less commitment to their careers and less desire for advancement. As we will discuss in more depth in the next section, the degree of commitment to the job that an employee is perceived to have can have a significant impact on her or his prospects for advancement. The following comment by a survey respondent gives a clue as to the relationship between mobility and ambition: Mobility plays too great a role in advancement. Top performing women who cannot move are hindered in the promotion process. They must go to great lengths to explain lack of mobility so that when a job is open locally they will not be passed over for failure to have applied for jobs outside their locale. Nonmobile women have high ambitions, too! We don't know the extent to which women have hindered their own career advancement by an unwillingness to relocate, nor the extent to which their career advancement has been limited by an expectation that they will not relocate. We do know that, on average, those with fewer geographic relocations have not progressed as far in their careers. A question which must be addressed, if we are to bring more women into higher ranks, is whether mobility should be as important a criteria for advancement as it is. For some high level jobs, experience in more than one location is undoubtedly essential. Where it is, women must decide whether resisting relocation is more important than meeting prerequisites for one of those jobs. But there are also many organizations where mobility has become a pro forma requirement for advancement without a demonstrated link between such a requirement and job performance. In these situations the best candidate for the job may be bypassed simply because his or her background does not include one or more relocations. Given the reality that a greater proportion of women than men are not mobile, pro forma relocation requirements will have a disproportionately adverse impact on the advancement of women. Regardless, even if we remove the effect of relocations on their careers, women still have a lower average grade and have received, on average, fewer promotions than men. Table 7 shows the average number of promotions received by men and women who entered Government at the same grade, by length of service, and accounting for education and the number of relocations. The differences between men and women are significant. Job Commitment It is also reasonable to assume that organizations more often promote those who demonstrate a strong level of commitment to their job and interest in advancement. Are women promoted less often because they are less committed to their jobs or less ambitious or merely because they are perceived to be this way? With regard to the first question, evidence from the survey indicates that women certainly believe themselves to be as ambitious and committed to their jobs as men. Table 8 shows the percentages of men and women responding to three statements included on the survey which asked them to indicate the extent to which they believed each of the statements applied to themselves. Clearly, these results indicate that women and men are equally likely to express a strong commitment to their jobs. We also asked survey participants about their career-related plans. A slightly higher percentage of women (64 percent) than men (57 percent) said they were planning to apply for promotion within or outside of the agency within the next 3 to 5 years. Based upon these responses, women appear to be as ambitious as men. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Table 7: Average number of promotions received by survey respondents entering at comparable grades, by length of service and sex, accounting for education and number of relocations Average Number Difference between of promotions men and women Length of Service Women Men Under 5 years 2.33 2.77 .44 5-10 years 3.00 3.40 .40 10-20 years 3.49 3.68 .19 More than 20 years 3.72 4.33 .61 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Table 8: Percent of survey respondents responding that statements about job commitment apply to them "to some extent" or "to a great extent," by sex Statement Women Men I am very committed to my job. 95 93 I am always enthusiastic about my job. 89 88 I am willing to devote whatever time is necessary to my job in order to advance my career. 78 74 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Another indication that women are just as earnest about their jobs as men comes from performance appraisal data. Annual performance appraisals are designed to evaluate the quality of employees' performance, which is certainly related to the seriousness with which they approach their jobs. Although not by any means a perfect evaluation of the work of Federal employees, these ratings at least provide an indication of how employees are doing relative to each other. According to CPDF data, there was no practical difference in the average performance rating for women and men in Professional and Administrative jobs as of December 1991. The average rating for women was 4.03 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is the highest ("outstanding") rating, and for men was 3.99. A profile of Federal employees using FY 1990 data from OPM reported that women in the white-collar workforce in general received 40 percent more "outstanding" ratings than men, and female managers receive one-third more top ratings than male managers.[16] Clearly, these data support the notion that women are as serious and as capable as their male peers and they are performing their jobs just as well, if not better, than men. But even employees who say they are committed to their jobs and careers, and who receive high performance appraisals, may not be seen as committed to their jobs by the managers and supervisors who make decisions which affect their careers. A Wall Street Journal article noted recently, for example: No matter how individual women approach their jobs, research shows women as a group are still widely seen as lacking in career commitment.[17] Promotion rate data shown previously in table 7 provide one indication that promotion rates may be affected by perceived job commitment rather than actual commitment. The difference in average number of promotions received is greatest between men and women with more than 20 years of Government service. This is not surprising, as there is widespread agreement that women faced more overt discrimination in the workplace prior to the 1970's than they have more recently. What is most interesting, however, is that the difference between average number of promotions received by men and women is less for those with between 10 and 20 years of experience than it is for those with 10 or fewer years of experience. This could be a function of a resurgence of discrimination against women during the 1980's. Another, more likely, explanation is that women who have proven their commitment to the job by remaining in the workforce for at least 10 years do better relative to men than women who have been in the workforce 10 or fewer years and have not had the time to demonstrate their commitment. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to be presumed to have a commitment. Expectations of Work and Family Requirements Time Spent on the Job. Our analysis of factors related to career success in the Government showed that the number of promotions received by employees is very much related to the average amount of time spent on the job each week. The importance of how much time an employee spends at work is reinforced by comments made during the focus groups, such as the following: I think there's an ethic in this department [that] if you're in the SES, you really better be available from 7:00 to 7:00. and: I'm not going to have a [manager] at the [GS] 15 level or an SES [manager]*** who can only work 7:00 to 3:30 and when 3:30 rolls around they're out of here. If you want to start work at 7:00 a.m., God bless you, but if I need you at 6:00 p.m. you should be here. As shown previously in table 8, women are not, overall, less willing to devote the time necessary to advance their career. But the childcare responsibilities which are traditionally handled by women apparently do have the effect of limiting their careers. Survey responses show that women without children, on average, devote the same amount of time to their jobs each week as men without children. But women with young children (elementary or preschool age) devote less time to their jobs, on average, than men with or without children. This is not meant to imply that women with children work less than 40 hours per week, as only 2 percent of them do. Forty-three percent of women with children reported that they work 40 hours per week, 37 percent work 41-45 hours per week and the remaining 18 percent work more than 45 hours per week. Unfortunately, the limits faced by women with children in their ability to devote the same amount of time as men to their jobs, above and beyond the standard 40 hour work week, may also result in the perception that they are less committed to their jobs than men, and unable to do their jobs as well. The Impact of Family Responsibilities. The Wall Street Journal article mentioned in the previous section went on to quote the Families and Work Institute as saying that in companies where fast- trackers are pushed to work long hours, work and family programs may allow women to work fewer hours, perhaps inadvertently creating a "mommy track" where women are seen as less committed and less worthy of promotion. Women, who usually bear more responsibility for child rearing than men do, are in a bind. While they may be very committed to their jobs and want to advance, they may in fact be seen as less than fully committed because, owing to childcare responsibilities, they do not have the flexibility to work extra hours. Women who take maternity leave are often perceived in the same way. This point is illustrated by a senior executive focus group participant who described a subordinate who had requested extended maternity leave. He said: She's clearly made a priority decision, there's nothing irrational about the decision, but*** it's much less likely she'll get a managerial shot or critical-deadline-driven assignment shot. That's much less likely. When pressed on the issue by another participant, he explained that his boss won't "trust her to take serious, intense projects, time driven, and finish them." Even where having a family does not limit the number of hours a woman is available to work women in focus groups reported that there often is a perception on the part of supervisors that they will be limited by family. For example, several women in focus groups noted that assumptions are made that women won't be able to complete certain assignments because they have children. Senior executive women described situations where women, after having children were told, "Well now you won't want to travel and you won't want this assignment. " Others talked about how women with children were told that particular jobs were not the "right job for them" because they required late hours. The following comment by another participant is illustrative: There is this business that as a successful senior executive you come in at 7:00 and you stay longer and work harder than anybody else and you really don't start your rumination about really important things until 10:00 or so at night. And the effect of this was that the only people who [they] wanted to discuss the job [vacancy with] were men of any age, single women, and older women with no kids. I mean there were two or three names in the hat and they said, "I don't want to talk to her because she has children who are still home in these hours." Now they don't pose that thing about men on the list, many of whom also have children in that age group. Another executive noted: I have one example of a very competent woman who I'm sure if she had not had a [family] would now be promoted several grade levels into a different organization. Although childcare responsibilities may affect the amount of time that a woman can devote to her job and thus also affect her perceived job commitment, there is also evidence suggesting that women without children may also be seen as less than fully committed to their jobs because they may one day decide to have children. The evidence comes from an examination of advancement rates for survey participants with and without children at various stages during their careers. During the first five years of their careers, women with and without children advance at approximately the same rate, while both groups of women have received significantly fewer promotions than men with and without children during the same 5 years. The difference in number of promotions between women without children and men without children declines as women remain for longer periods of time in the Federal workforce. This suggests that women who have spent relatively little time in the workforce are less likely to be viewed as committed to their jobs, whether or not they have children. This is not meant to imply that Federal managers consciously discriminate against women with children, or women who are at an early stage in their careers. It may be that to the extent that working overtime or on the weekends serves as a proxy for job commitment, women with children (or with the potential to have children) are seen as less committed since childcare limits their flexibility to work extra hours. The intangibility of this factor is demonstrated by the range of responses we received in asking survey participants to agree or disagree with the following statement "ln general, in my organization it is a disadvantage to have family responsibilities when being considered for a job." One-third of women (33 percent) and one quarter of men (23 percent) agreed with the statement; 28 percent of women and 39 percent of men disagreed; and the remaining 38 percent of men and women neither agreed nor disagreed. Family responsibilities can also affect men, particularly now that more men are taking more responsibility for childcare. But our survey data show that more women than men continue to have primary responsibility for children. Of survey respondents who have dependents now, more than twice as many women (56 percent) as men (24 percent) reported that they have primary responsibility for the care of those dependents. As shown in table 9, it is clear that women with children pay a greater price in terms of career advancement than do men. Overall women with children have received fewer promotions than women without children and than men regardless of whether they had children. In calculating these averages, we also controlled for length of Government service, amount of education, the number of relocations, and any extended leaves of absence that were taken. Similarly, while 86 percent of men who succeeded in reaching the SES had children living with them during their Federal careers, only 54 percent of women senior executives did. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Table 9: Average number of promotions for survey respondents with and without children, by sex, accounting for length of Government service, education, the number of relocations, and leaves and absence With Children Without Children Women 3.37 3.51 Men 3.88 3.57 ----------------------------------------------------------------- One other obvious point raised by table 9 is that men with children have been promoted more often, on average, than men without children. We can only speculate on the reasons for this. One possibility is that men with families have a greater motivation to advance. Another reason may be related to an old issue raised anew by a focus group participant: Where people's bonuses, grades, salaries were being discussed, it was literally mentioned by the other men that "look, he's a male, and he has a family to support--if anybody should get a promotion it should be him." Since this issue was raised a number of times during the focus groups, we decided to use the survey to see how widespread this perception is. We asked those surveyed to indicate the extent to which they agreed with the statement: "In general I think that managers in my organization believe men are the primary income providers, and so are more deserving of promotions than women." While a majority of men and women did not find much merit in this statement, a sizable minority of women (33 percent) believed it to be true at least to some extent. Time Spent at Work as a Criterion for Promotion. Based upon our survey and focus group results, it is apparent that women, and especially women with children are sometimes seen as being less committed to their jobs. This perception may be a significant barrier to advancement for women. The issue is not whether choosing to give one's family equal or more importance than the job is a wise or appropriate decision for a Federal employee to make. The issue is whether a parent's real or perceived lack of flexibility because of family should affect, to the degree it does, the evaluation of her or his commitment to the job and potential for advancement. Few would disagree that an incorrect perception about an employee should not be the basis for a decision affecting his or her career advancement. But are managers too quick to assume that employees who can't work longer hours are inferior candidates for promotion or career-enhancing assignments? Should not the quantity and quality of an employee's work be the primary determining factor? Like the issue of mobility, the time that an employee has available to devote to the job is often considered as a key component in evaluating his or her suitability for advancement. Many jobs undoubtedly do require a substantial commitment of time beyond the standard 40-hour work week. As long as women are more likely to have primary responsibility for children, these women may find themselves unable to be competitive for these jobs because they do not have the flexibility to make that time commitment. However, managers should ensure that time availability is only considered as a criterion where it is indeed necessary for successful performance of a particular job or work assignment so that those who may be among the best candidates, including women with children or the potential to have children, are not overlooked. We have already noted that women, on average, receive the same performance ratings as men and a higher percentage of the "outstanding" ratings, and women managers receive more of the top ratings than male managers. This is evidence that women's work is of equal or even higher quality than men's, and further suggests that there may be better criteria for judging an employee's potential for advancement than her or his ability to work long hours. For example, some of the women who participated in our focus groups talked about the fact that competing demands on their time during the period they were raising children actually helped them to be as or more productive than they would have been otherwise. A comment by a woman reflecting on her own career illustrates this point: I tended to work much harder during the working day and my attention was more focused on what I was doing than some of my male colleagues' was This was in part because they would stay later than I did, or they tended to have much more in the way of informal interactions that I didn't have the time to do in anything other than a focused way. Some private-sector companies are also beginning to question whether the number of hours per week spent on the job should play such an important role in an employee's potential for advancement. For example, according to the director of benefits for Xerox, that corporation urges managers to stress results rather than time spent in the office, relocations, and other "corporate rituals" in determining who is the best candidate for a job.[18] In a 1991 report, MSPB called for greater expansion of programs which help employees to balance work and family responsibilities, including expanding part-time job opportunities and using workplace flexibilities. The report also noted that: [T]raditional business values (including the Government's) taught employees that their careers would be hurt if 'personal' issues interfered with their job*** [M]anagement must go beyond ensuring that work environments are not hostile to work and family concerns, but rather must create environments which are proactively supportive. Otherwise, work and family benefit programs will not achieve their desired results--losing the potential benefits to both employees and the Government.[19] If the Government wants to go beyond helping employees to meet their needs and providing a better quality and productive workforce, to ensuring that representation by women at top levels increases, then even more should be asked of managers. Agency heads should ask their managers not just to support work and family programs, but to reexamine the criteria on which they and supervisors give employees career- enhancing work assignments and promotions. Managers should ensure that responsibility for children, or the possibility that a woman will have children in the future, does not play an inordinate role in their decisions. Employees' Views of Their Career Advancement We were also interested in knowing what Federal employees themselves believe has helped their career advancement. Table 10 shows some of the items which men and women were asked to rate in terms of the effect of each on their Federal careers. Survey respondents are very aware of the importance of work experience and education in their career advancement. Over 80 percent of both men and women reported that their previous work experience helped them in their careers. But men are more likely than women to say that formal educational qualifications helped them. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Table 10: Responses of survey respondents about the effect of various items on their career advancement, by sex Percent responding Item Helped a lot Helped a little No effect Women Men Women Men Women Men Formal educational qualifications 44 50 30 31 15 15 Previous work experience 60 58 24 26 13 15 My performance or "track" record 79 67 16 23 3 9 Opportunity to act in a position(s) prior to appointment 44 30 27 29 27 38 Completion of specialized or technical training 44 38 35 35 20 27 Completion of formal developmental program or managerial training 26 15 31 34 42 50 Developmental assignments 42 26 37 39 20 33 Having a senior person/mentor looking out for my interests 28 12 37 32 31 52 Social/informal contacts with managers in the organization 8 6 32 27 53 61 Social/informal contacts with personnel office staff 4 2 19 12 72 83 Contacts through professional association or other formal network 8 5 24 19 67 74 Recommendations of friends or acquaintances who knew the selecting official 17 10 30 24 51 65 Having friends or acquaintances on the staff of the organization(s) where I applied 11 7 30 22 58 70 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ten percent of women, mostly at the level of GS 9-12, reported that educational qualifications (or, more likely, a lack of educational qualifications) had actually hindered their career advancement. Women in this grade range, overall have less formal education than men, and those who believe formal educational qualifications were a hindrance in their careers were, for the most part, those without college degrees. Women, on the other hand, are more likely than men to believe that the opportunity to act in a position(s) prior to appointment, carry out developmental assignments, and complete a formal developmental program or managerial training has helped them in their careers. This finding may imply that these kinds of assignments and training programs have been particularly effective for advancing women, perhaps in giving them an additional opportunity to demonstrate their commitment and competence. It also may imply that women require more opportunities to demonstrate their abilities than do men in order to break down traditional stereotypes of women as less competent as managers than men. These kinds of perceptions will be discussed in more detail in a later section.) In either case, it would seem that women's career opportunities could be further enhanced through continuation or expansion of these kinds of programs. The Importance of Mentors Table 10 also shows that women are somewhat more likely than men to have been helped by "having a senior person/mentor looking out for my interests." This is somewhat surprising since according to conventional wisdom, bolstered by evidence from studies of the private sector,[20] women are less likely to have mentors than men. These studies have shown that people tend to have mentors of their own gender, and there are fewer women in senior positions available to mentor other women. Our survey responses do in indicate that men are more likely to mentor men and women are more likely to mentor women. However, as great a percentage of women (48 percent) as men (45 percent) reported that they have had male mentors and more women (41 percent) than men (19 percent) have had female mentors. In the Federal Government, then, it appears that rather than being disadvantaged by a lack of access to mentors, women actually derive more benefit from them than men do. Making Use of Networks Networking can also enhance one's potential for advancement. Networking is a broad concept which can include anything from calling upon a colleague for work-related information to developing long-term relationships with present or former work associates. Contacts with a network can be on the job or in the context of social activities. Studies in the private sector have found evidence that women are often excluded from networks dominated by men, and therefore have less access to information and contacts which could enhance their advancement potential.[21] We were interested in knowing the extent to which a lack of access to networks may contribute to fewer promotions of women in the Federal Government. Access to Job Opportunities. One way networking aids career advancement is by helping employees make a job change. Often employees, particularly at higher levels, learn about job openings from, or are recommended for jobs by, members of their networks. For example, one woman focus group participant said she found out about opportunities for advancement this way: Most of [my advancement opportunities] have been found through networking. I mean when I was ready for a change I would call people, and in the interim sometimes people would call me and I would go on interviews.*** The last job that I got was just totally out of the blue. Someone called me, and it was a promotion, and I decided it made sense. Nonetheless, focus group discussions indicate that many women believe they are undermined by not being included in the kinds of informal relationships that men have with each other. Many women cited sports activities as a medium through which men can develop career-enhancing, informal relationships that women are not privy to. An example of the role sports can play here is given the following comment: We have a [high official], his subordinate supervisor, and several of their subordinates who go jogging together. And I'm hearing rumblings from some of the women in the branch that if one of those male subordinates gets an advancement, they're going to see it as quid pro quo for having jogged with their supervisor and their supervisor's supervisor, regardless of whether they discuss business. We asked men and women in focus group sessions how they had learned about promotional opportunities during their career, and if they thought the process was any different for those of the other gender. We found, in general that both men and women had a wide range of experiences in learning about opportunities for advancement, ranging from responding on their own to a vacancy announcement to being recommended for, or referred to, a job by a member of their network In general, most men and women believe the process is the same for colleagues of the opposite gender. To try to assess differences in access to jobs on a broader scale, we asked survey participants three questions about how they acquired the job they currently hold. These were: (1) Did you know the person who occupied your current position before you applied for the position? (2) Did you know the supervisor of your current position before you applied for the position? (3) To the best of your knowledge, were other candidates formally considered for your current position at the time you applied? In general, men and women did not differ significantly in their responses to these questions. For both men and women overall, about half knew the supervisor of the current position, half knew the occupant, and three-quarters said that other candidates were considered at the time they applied. At the GS 9-12 level women were more likely than men to have known the occupant of the position; i.e., 51 percent of women and only 39 percent of men knew the occupant. At the GS 9-12 level women were also more likely to have known the supervisor of the position before applying; 55 percent of women and 43 percent of men reported that they knew the supervisor. We also asked survey participants whether the recommendations of friends or acquaintances who knew the selecting official or having friends or acquaintances on the staff of the organizations where they applied had helped their career advancement (see table 10). Women were slightly more likely than men to report that these relationships helped their career We asked those surveyed who had been denied a promotion or developmental opportunity for which they had applied in the last 5 years about why they think they were turned down. As shown in table 11, there is a substantial percentage of respondents who believe that not being "part of the group" was an important reason for being turned down for the promotion or developmental opportunity. However, men are just as likely as women to say that not being "part of the group" was an important reason for their having been denied a developmental opportunity, and men are even more likely to say this was an important reason for having been denied a promotion. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Table 11: How important survey respondents believe not being "part of the group" was when they were denied a promotional opportunity or developmental assignment, by sex Percent responding: Somewhat or Of little or no very important importance Importance in being-- Women Men Women Men Denied a promotion 37 44 56 50 Denied a developmental opportunity 41 41 52 50 Not shown are those responding "Don't know." ------------------------------------------------------------------ We asked survey participants to agree or disagree with the following statement: "Those who participate in social activities (e.g., sports, card games, after-work cocktails) are more likely to be promoted than those who don't." Again, while more than one-third of respondents (37 percent) agreed with the statement, just as great a percentage of men as women were in agreement. There is, then, a substantial minority of men and women who believe that exclusion from a particular group or network can hinder their promotion potential. We cannot evaluate the extent to which this perception is justified. But what is important for the purposes of this study is that women are no more likely to believe they have been impeded by this process than men. The Indirect Effects of Networking on Career Advancement. Direct access to a promotion is not the only benefit that a network can provide, in the long run, to career advancement. Discussions during the focus groups indicated that many women believe men are able to take advantage of the informal relationships they develop with other men to gain access to information or superiors in the chain of command. It is possible that greater access can help the man do a better job or gain recognition that may ultimately indirectly enhance his potential for advancement. For this reason some women believe they are disadvantaged, relative to men, in pursuing their career objectives. The following comments from focus group participants express this viewpoint: While the competition must be fairly equal for men and women entering the executive levels, once the male and female executives are in place then their potential for growth and advancement changes because of the [tendency for] the males in the organization to favor the other male executives and help them along. And this is where the old boys network really revs up and where men begin to find opportunities for other men, point out to them other options, and [as a result the men] move more rapidly once they enter than women have a tendency to. and: When new men come on board oftentimes they are brought into the fold, told things, they are guided along, and this doesn't happen with a woman. She is brought in and she's greeted and everything, but she's not necessarily brought into the fold and told everything about it and given all these helpful little hints. Some of the men who participated in focus groups acknowledged that men tend to form informal relationships with each other in which women may not be included. The following comment from a senior executive participant is an example: It's just easier to talk to a guy even if you don't know him, compared to a woman. I mean there are just certain things that you automatically think that you and the other guy have in common, and you automatically think that you and the woman do not have in common. It could be the basketball game the night before*** or something of that nature and [by talking to him about it] you get to know the guy***. You tend not to do that with a female. Certainly, there are men as well as women who believe they are excluded from informal networks, as some of the responses to the survey questions presented previously in table 11 demonstrate. But are these networks gender-based? When asked on the survey about whom they rely on for informal help with work projects or information about the organization, only 21 percent of men said they rely more on men than women, to at least some extent. The same percentage of women said they rely on women more than men for informal help or information. Men were slightly more likely (28 percent) than women (21 percent) to say that they rely on colleagues of their own gender for career advice. Still, these responses do not support the notion that either men or women are isolated in gender-based groups which serve as the primary source for work-related information and advice. It is reasonable to believe, as many women do, that people are often more comfortable asking informally for information from people with whom they have friendly relationships than from those with whom they are less well-acquainted. And, to the extent that men feel more comfortable developing friendly relationships with other men, and to the extent that more men are in senior positions, women may have less access to that information and may be at a disadvantage. However, there is little evidence to suggest that this is a significant or widespread disadvantage which would account to any great degree for women getting fewer promotions than men. Nevertheless, managers should be aware that many Federal employees (including those in management ranks) believe that informal relationships play an inordinate role in the career advancement process. This appears to be an issue which troubles as many men as women.