Elsevier

Social Science Research

Volume 101, January 2022, 102622
Social Science Research

Gender inequality in relational position-taking: An analysis of intra-organizational job mobility networks

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Abstract

We conceptualize within-organization job mobility as a position-taking process, arguing that the structure and outcome of claims over positions are characteristics of organizational inequality regimes. Drawing on data from 10 distribution centers from a large U.S. firm, we examine gendered job mobility as the observed network of workers moving among jobs. Results from network analysis and meta-regression reveal that in the firm examined, workers tend to move between jobs with similar gender compositions, that mobility lattices tend to be more ladder-like for male-concentrated jobs but more circuitous for female-concentrated jobs, and that there is less upward mobility overall in organizations with higher levels of wage inequality. Both organization level inequalities and the relationship between positions within organizations condition mobility. While we do not observe discursive claims on positions, we argue that these are the underlying mechanisms driving gendered job mobility.

Introduction

While conventional economic theorizing implies that inequality is the consequence of market phenomena (Autor et al. 2008; Card and DiNardo, 2002), recent sociological research situates the reproduction of economic inequality within organizational contexts. Following Relational Inequality Theory (Tomaskovic-Devey and Avent-Holt 2019), organizations operate as “inequality regimes” that create and perpetuate categorical inequalities through shared meanings and practices as well as structured divisions of labor (Acker, 2006). Individuals make claims on organizational resources and those resources are distributed to actors who successfully mount legitimate claims. This “relational claims-making” process is generic to organizations, although the character of inequality regimes and outcomes of these relational contests vary substantially across organizations and institutional fields (Tomaskovic-Devey and Avent-Holt, 2019).

Existing empirical tests of Relational Inequality Theory typically show how wage differentials are related to variation in the ascriptive composition (gender/race/immigrant status) of workers across organizations (e.g., Avent-Holt and Tomaskovic-Devey, 2012; Tomaskovic-Devey et al. 2015) and interpreted in terms of mechanisms of exploitation and social closure. Less is known about how position-taking processes (i.e., struggles over capturing job positions within organizations) may be implicated as a form of relational claims-making. Inequality regimes shape the logic of job (i.e. resource) contestation and allocation (Emirbayer and Johnson, 2008) and constitute distinctive internal job mobility structures (McDonald and Benton, 2017). The underlying structure of the movement of workers among jobs therefore provides a window into how relational inequality operates in organizations. However, further knowledge of how position-taking occurs within and across organizational contexts is needed. One prior paper analyzes the network of movements of workers among jobs, conceptualized as a relational position-taking process (McDonald and Benton, 2017). The authors find that mobility structures are associated with supervisory-worker distinctions and that there are fewer paths into supervisory jobs in workplaces with high wage dispersion.

In this paper, we build upon McDonald and Benton (2017) by examining job mobility networks and their implications for organizational inequalities, focusing on gendered mobility and gender inequalities specifically. Gender is an especially salient category of inequality given the perpetuation of gender segregation within and across work organizations and the unequal distribution of labor market outcomes by gender (Levanon et al. 2009; Maume, 1999; Wright et al. 1995). Informed by research on relational inequality, social networks, and gender segregation, we argue that female- and male-dominated jobs should display unique mobility patterns, consequently reproducing gendered job segregation. We further hypothesize that the level of wage inequality in organizational units should moderate gendered job mobility networks.

We draw on data collected from distribution centers of a large firm in the United States from the years 1992 through 1997. Our dataset encompasses a total of 7198 employees who worked in 445 jobs across 10 different distribution centers. The data capture 4163 mobility events, which reflect the yearly movement of workers from one job to the next. This firm provides a useful case study. It is organized as an internal labor market, with specific points of entry and an almost universal pattern of internal promotions. Our data are therefore distinctive in their ability to capture the presence of gendered mobility in spite of transparent job postings and job ladders, which have been shown to promote gender equality in the workplace (Dobbin et al. 2015). We operationalize job mobility as a network of jobs with workers moving between them. We analyze the structure of job mobility through the use of advanced network modeling techniques (i.e., exponential random graph models) and meta-regression analysis. The results suggest that networks of job mobility reinforce gender inequality, while also illustrating that inequality can be intensified or weakened depending on the relational dynamics of the organizational context.

While firm internal labor markets have been in decline since the 1970s (Kalleberg, 2011), internal job mobility remains quite common, with some research noting that it remains the dominant form of upward mobility within careers (Bidwell and Mollick 2015). One can think about this paper as particularly applicable to organizations with internal promotion practices. We intend for the methods developed in this paper to be extended to mobility networks both across and within firms in the near future as originally proposed in Tomaskovic-Devey (2013). A between firm application using similar methods focused on the role of past ties in predicting future mobility is available in Collet and Hedström (2013).

Section snippets

Relational inequality theory

Relational Inequality Theory (RIT) conceives of organizations as “inequality regimes” that create and perpetuate economic inequalities through shared meanings and practices (Acker 2006; Tomaskovic-Devey and Avent-Holt, 2017). Organizations (which RIT theorists treat as interchangeable with workplaces) maintain distinct institutional arrangements that affect how resources are allocated and how inequalities arise from a relational process in which actors make claims on organizational resources

Gender inequality in organizations

Gender is an especially salient feature of work organizations. Job segregation within workplaces is common and typically seen as the result of gendered closure and queuing processes: in the U.S., white men have high rates of segregation from white women and racial minorities (Tomaskovic-Devey et al., 2006; Tomaskovic-Devey and Stainback, 2007). In both 2000 and 2010, about 50 % of men or women would have needed to change occupations in order to achieve integration (Cohen 2013). White men tend

The current study

We examine gendered job mobility pathways as a means of analyzing how patterns of position-taking—one form of claims-making—contribute to inequality within and across organizations. We suggest that RIT offers a comprehensive framework through which to understand gendered position-taking because it incorporates insights from, yet also extends beyond, other popular theories of gendered work outcomes. Specifically, RIT aligns with status construction and devaluation perspectives by suggesting that

Data

The data derive from distribution centers of a large United States firm from 1992 to 1997. A total of 7198 employees worked in 410 jobs in 10 different distribution centers that supplied the firm with its products. These are personnel data from the company, with information about employees and the jobs they were working in during each year.3

Results

Valued ERGMs were run for each distribution center to obtain baseline slope and standard error estimates. We then ran meta-regression on the set of 10 estimates to summarize the results across the entire sample. The estimates in Table 2 show the results for this portion of the analysis.

First, the structural effects reveal how the features of the observed networks deviate from randomly generated networks. The positive and significant value for the sum parameter suggests that these networks

Discussion and conclusion

Various forms of relational claims-making, and particularly claims made on wages, are implicated in the production of organizational inequalities by previous sociological research (Sauer et al. f. c.; Tomaskovic-Devey and Avent-Holt, 2017). However, position-taking—a highly pervasive form of relational claims-making—is often overlooked. Social network analysis is uniquely suited to capture patterns of position-taking within organizations because it helps to reveal the complex structure of

Acknowledgements

Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the American Sociological Association annual meeting (New York), at a Work and the Global Economy Workshop in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University, and at Social Networks and Gender: An International Symposium at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Barcelona). We are grateful for the comments by participants that helped improve the manuscript.

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