Gender Discrimination in the Boardroom

The author analyses the discrimination against women in the boardrooms of the top 50 American companies in 2008, focusing on the human capital attainment of 100 male and 100 female executives. This empirical study draws on the status characteristics theory (SCT), which predicts that for low-status groups (such as women in this case), standards of ability are higher than for high-status group members. That is, for a woman to be perceived as having high ability, she needs to have more evidence of ability than that required by her male counterpart.This study concludes that gender-based barriers do exist in senior management positions of the chosen companies. The author discusses the reasons for such discrimination, citing corporate practices, behavioural and cultural causes and feminist theories, and relates this to the Indian context.