A Study of the Advancement of Women in Municipal Government Bureaucracies

Abstract

If women's advancement to the highest-level decision-making positions in governmental bureaucracies is to be enhanced, a better understanding of the continued impediments to such progress is essential. This study employs a large, previously underutilized national data set obtained from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to answer two questions. To what extent are women represented in the top-level administrative positions in municipal governments? And, are the impediments to women reaching the highest-level administrative posts in municipal governments related to the policy outputs and/or organizational cultures of these agencies? We find that (1) the underrepresentation of women in top-level administrative positions in distributive and regulatory agencies is pervasive across cities, suggesting that women continue to be confronted by the presence of glass ceilings in such agencies; and (2) even though women are well-represented among administrative cadres in redistributive agencies in many cities, their full representation at the uppermost administrative levels is still an elusive goal.

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