The nexus between gender and perceived career opportunities: evidence from the U.S. federal government

Although the horizontal representation of women in the U.S. workforce has significantly increased, numerous studies have found that there is still a substantial underrepresentation of women at high-level positions. In light of this fact, this article examines differences in perceived career opportunities between men and women in the federal workforce as well as the evolution of these differences between 2006 and 2013. To do this, a heterogeneous choice model is used to examine representative samples of two waves of the U.S. federal employee viewpoint survey. We come to the finding that a difference in perceived career opportunities exists and, surprisingly, that this difference did not decrease or increase during the examined time period.