If you’re a woman with a male boss, what are some of the determining factors that go into whether you will get a promotion? Job performance, punctuality, professionalism–these are important parts of the equation, but one which you may not be considering is your boss’s wife’s occupation.
A 2012 article from Fortune discusses a study that found male executives whose wives were stay-at-home spouses were less likely to grant promotions to female workers than those whose spouses had careers of their own.
The researchers said the ones less likely to promote women were “nice guys who really believe that they are capable of seeing female colleagues as equals. They were not deliberately holding women back.” However, their actions in the study seemed to indicate otherwise, at least in regards to the seeing females as equals part, we can’t comment on the “nice guys” portion.
Another researcher said:
“We found that employed husbands in traditional marriages, compared to those in modern marriages, tend to view the presence of women at work unfavorably — and, more frequently, to deny qualified female employees opportunities for promotion.”
This presents a conundrum for women in the workplace. Sure, in a perfect world you would prefer to pick to work for a man with a wife who is also a professional, given this data. However, this is infrequently something people know about their supervisor prior to accepting a job, and with a still-struggling economy, people don’t always have the luxury of turning down a job offer.
We will offer a glimmer of hope that was not in the article or study. Over the past several decades, the paradigm has been shifting more toward more women in the workplace, which could also mean more working wives. That, in turn, should mean more accepting male executives. This may be a false assumption. After all, the wives of executives may not have to work, but a girl can hope, can’t she?
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