The Authority Attainment of Women: Competitive Sector Effects

A bstract . Women receive better returns than men in authority in the competitive sector of the economy, all else being equal (including gender‐type of occupation and firm size). This finding supports a hypothesis drawn from organizations theory and Becker (1971) (1957). In addition, this analysis shows that while differences in education and hours worked per week do help explain the gender difference in authority in the workplace , gender differences in domestic responsibilities have little direct effect on authority attainment.