Examining the Role of Gender in Career Advancement at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Presenter: Zhuo (Adam) Chen, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Abstract

Objective: In the last decade, efforts to promote gender parity in healing and public health professions had only met with partial success. By examining sex-related differences in promotion rates at the nation’s lead public health agency, this paper provides a critical update on the status of women in the public health profession.

Data: Personnel data drawn from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2002 to 2006 are used. The principal dependent variable in our study, the grade of employees on the general schedule and related (GSR) pay plans, is an ordinal variable that conveys position in the organizational hierarchy within the agency. We examine two additional binary dependent variables to measure promotion. The first, GSR14+, is a binary indicator which equals one if the employee has a grade of GSR14 or above, and zero otherwise. The second binary dependent variable, GSR15+, indicates GSR15 or above, which is usually associated with a senior management position. Independent variables include age and its squared term, years of government experience and its squared term, and dummy variables for sex, race-ethnicity, educational attainment and professional training.

Method: By employing logistic regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition analysis, the paper decomposes the observed sex-related differentials in promotion probabilities into a portion “explained” by observable characteristics (e.g., education, experience) and an “unexplained” residual.

Conclusions: We found a diminishing gender gap in promotion and that the reduction in this gap over time can largely be accounted for by changes in individual characteristics, e.g., higher education and more experience. However a gender gap in promotion that cannot be explained by such individual characteristics still exists, suggesting continuing efforts are needed to remove barriers in career advancement for women.