What you really, really want

EQUALITY between the sexes has improved greatly in the rich world in recent decades, but differences remain, particularly at the top. Only 5% of the bosses of big American firms are female. Likewise, only about 20 heads of national governments are. Some of this is surely caused by residual discrimination, and some by the fact that women, not men, usually raise the children. But a third factor may also be at work: women may simply want the top jobs less than men do, because they want other things more.This politically incorrect thought is the subject of a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Francesca Gino of the Harvard Business School and her colleagues. They carried out studies on diverse groups of men and women, and came to the conclusion that women's concerns about the downsides of power and professional advancement often make promotion seem less desirable to them than it is to men.The researchers questioned a range of volunteers, from undergraduates to executives, on their goals in...Continue reading
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