The Consequences of Informal Job Finding for Men and Women

Abstract

This study examined the role that the gender of job informants plays in the job-finding process for men and women. Data on job seekers at a large bank were used to test hypotheses derived from work on social distance and gender segregation. Our results suggest that jobs found via cross-gender referrals are hierarchically lower than the jobs of the informants and that women refer job seekers to gender-typical jobs more than men do.