A conservation of resources perspective on career hurdles and salary attainment

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Highlights

  • This study is a quantitative review of predictors of salary attainments.

  • It uses the conservation of resources theory as the theoretical guide.

  • There are six groups of hurdles individuals face in their careers.

  • The meta-analysis is based on 339 empirical studies conducted in the past 50 years.

  • The findings suggest that multiple career hurdles contribute to lower salary.

Abstract

Guided by conservation of resources theory, the present study examines six types of hurdles individuals face in their careers and how those hurdles impede the attainment of higher salaries. With a meta-analysis of 339 empirical studies conducted over the past 50 years, we observed that socio-demographic hurdles (e.g., being non-Caucasian), trait-related hurdles (e.g., low cognitive ability), motivational hurdles (e.g., being unwilling to relocate), skill-related hurdles (e.g., low levels of formal education), social environment hurdles (e.g., no mentors), and work environment hurdles (e.g., jobs with low control) all made it more difficult to command high salaries.

Section snippets

Conservation of resources perspective on career hurdles

While this study examines a broad array of career hurdles, what they all have in common is that they curtail employees' ability to exert time and energy to obtain higher salaries (Tsaousides & Jome, 2008). For that reason, we draw on conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989, Wright and Hobfoll, 2004) to explain how the career hurdles we identify negatively impact salary attainment. COR theory posits that when there are threats of resource losses, individuals respond by conserving

Socio-demographic hurdles

Because of their socio-demographic backgrounds, individuals may face greater obstacles in attaining higher salary (Greenhaus, Parasuraman, & Wormley, 1990). Indeed, researchers have provided widespread evidence that socio-demographic characteristics affect individuals' ability to acquire high-paying jobs throughout their careers (Dreher and Cox, 1996, McCauley et al., 1980, Weber and Crocker, 1983). For instance, children from prosperous, well-educated families are more likely to receive higher

Scope of meta-analysis

We performed a comprehensive search for those field studies, published in or before 2013, that measured salary. As recommended by Rosenthal (1979), we also searched for unpublished studies, conference proceedings, and dissertations through such databases as the Digital Dissertation Consortium. Multiple keywords were used in the electronic search, such as salary, income, pay, wages, earning, remuneration, compensation, and career success.

Five criteria were used to refine the set of studies used

Effect sizes

Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5 present the corrected effect sizes for the relationships of the six groups of career hurdles with salary. We consider an average corrected correlation to be statistically significant when its 95% confidence interval does not include the value of zero. Following Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002), we interpret the strength of the correlations as follows: weak (.10 to .23), moderate (.24 to .36), and strong (.37 or above). Effect sizes less than .10 were considered

Discussion

The present meta-analysis provides preliminary support for the career hurdle perspective on salary attainment and the utility of COR theory in understanding the relationships between those hurdles and salary. Below, we review and provide explanations for the patterns of results uncovered.

Conclusion

Salary attainment continues to be a core indicator of individuals' career success. This study utilizes a career hurdle perspective to explain how individual-level, group-level, and organizational-level factors impede individuals' abilities to attain higher salaries. We hope that this perspective will stimulate more nuanced research on the correlates of salary attainment.

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