Preferring Future Male Leaders? Evidence from Junior Civil Servants’ Hiring and Promotion
by Feng Hu
Abstract: This paper studies how gender preference shapes decisions in junior hiring and early-career promotions. We combine novel data on job advertisements, recruiting evaluations, and the promotion history of junior civil servants in China. We find stated male preference in civil service job advertisements, which discourages women from applying for these jobs. During the hiring process, female candidates receive lower evaluations, but only in the part of the evaluation where gender identity is disclosed. Consequently, similarly qualified women are less likely than men to be hired as civil servants. Despite outperforming their male counterparts, women in civil service positions are 35-45% less likely to be promoted. These findings illustrate how gender preference influences career trajectories from job advertisements to promotion decisions, helping explain the persistence of gender inequality in leadership roles. We conclude by presenting quasi-experimental evidence that two targeted policies – designed to address gender preference in advertisements and candidate assessment – effectively reduce gender disparities in both candidate evaluations and hiring outcomes.