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It is well-documented that women and racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the economics profession, relative to both the general population and other academic disciplines. Less is known about the socioeconomic diversity of the economics profession. In this paper, we use data on parental education from the Survey of Earned Doctorates to examine the socioeconomic background of US economics PhD recipients, as compared to other disciplines. We find that economics PhD recipients are substantially more likely to have highly educated parents, and less likely to have parents without a college degree, than PhD recipients in other non-economics disciplines. This is true for both US-born PhD recipients and non-US-born PhD recipients, but is particularly stark for the US-born. The gap in socioeconomic diversity between economics and other PhD disciplines has increased over the last five decades, and particularly over the last two decades.

Economics job candidates face considerable professional and financial uncertainties when deciding between academic and nonacademic career paths. Using novel panel data, we provide a broad picture of PhD economists' early career mobility and earnings growth—both in and outside of academia. We find that academic jobs have fallen to just over half of US placements, with growing shares in tech, consulting, and government. We document considerable early career job mobility and higher earnings growth among job changers, private-sector economists, and men. We also find an earnings premium for graduates of top-ranked PhD programs that grows over early career years in academia while shrinking in the private sector. These different earnings dynamics mean the opportunity cost (in terms of potential earnings) of remaining in academia is generally less for graduates of top-ranked programs, although there is significant dispersion in mid-career earnings among these academics.

Engineering remains one of the most highly and persistently sex segregated occupations in the United States. Though extant literature submits that women’s increased access to managerial positions in male-dominated occupations should represent an important strategy for addressing sex segregation, my analysis of 61 interviews with industry engineers suggests that increasing women’s disproportionate representation in managerial roles in engineering may promote the very sex segregation it is attempting to mitigate. The analysis highlights how organizations reinforce female engineers’ movement into managerial roles and foster a form of intraoccupational sex segregation with unintended consequences for women. These consequences include fostering mixed identification with engineering, reinforcing stereotypes about women’s suitability for technical work, and increasing work–life balance tensions. The findings further suggest that an inverted role hierarchy in engineering may explain these gendered career patterns and their unintended consequences. By inverted role hierarchy I mean the valuing of technical over managerial roles. Implications for the literatures on occupational sex segregation, women’s representation in managerial roles, and the experience of women in male-dominated occupations are discussed. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1132 .

Sales employees can build their careers across industries, firms, and occupations. Yet it is unclear how their sales career paths affect their compensation. To assess the value of their experience, we examine the paychecks drawn by nearly 25,000 sales employees over 22 years. Consistent with our arguments, we find that firms place greater value on sales managers' experience than salespeople’s, reflecting the multiplier effect attributed to managers. In particular, sales occupation experience seems to be the most salient type of experience for both groups, as it is fungible across industries and firms. We uncover two distinct paths in sales organizations: the salesperson’s career path rewarding sales experience and another path providing promotional prospects in sales. Analyses indicate that most newly promoted sales managers have no sales experience and move laterally from other managerial positions. Implications of our findings for research and sales-compensation practice are discussed.

Visa policies to retain United States-trained STEM PhDs are of central importance to national innovation and economic competitiveness. There is also growing interest in “startup” visas that stimulate entrepreneurial activity and job creation, particularly in technology sectors. However, there is little understanding of how visa policies might influence foreign PhDs’ employment in technology startups. This study investigates differences between 2,324 foreign and US PhDs from US research universities using a longitudinal survey of individuals’ preferences and characteristics during graduate school and their subsequent employment in a startup or established firm. Among PhDs whose first job is industrial research & development, 15.8% of US PhDs work in a startup compared with 6.8% of foreign PhDs. Foreign PhDs are as likely as US PhDs to apply to and receive offers for startup jobs, but conditional on receiving an offer, they are 56% less likely to work in a startup. This disparity is partially explained by differences in visa sponsorship between startups and established firms and not by foreign PhDs’ preferences for established firm jobs, risk tolerance, or preference for higher pay. Foreign PhDs who first work in an established firm and subsequently receive a green card are more likely to move to a startup than another established firm, suggesting that permanent residency facilitates startup employment. These findings suggest that US visa policies may deter foreign PhDs from working in startups, thereby restricting startups’ access to a large segment of the STEM PhD workforce and impairing startups’ ability to contribute to innovation and economic growth.

This study aimed to assess the moderating effect of strategic planning on the relationship between career path planning and job performance among employees in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Kingdom of Bahrain. A convenience sample consisting of 249 participants was selected. The study used SPSS and Smart-PLS to analyze the data. The findings of the study revealed that strategic planning and career path planning affected SME employees’ performance. In contrast, it was found that strategic planning substantially moderated the relationship between career path planning and job performance. Moreover, the results showed that SP and CPP had the greatest impact on JP. Based on the obtained findings, it is shown that the proposed hypotheses are accepted. The study revealed the impact of the moderator on the relationship between CPP and JP. The results of this study may serve as a guide for the owners and managers of enterprises and decision makers who aim to develop strategic planning and enhance employee performance.

This article studies the association between the characteristics of individuals’ social networks and expectations of career advancement, including pay raises and job promotions. The literature has extensively documented the role of social capital as a determinant of labour market outcomes. However, the formation of expectations constitutes another critical path by which social ties may affect work through their influence on individual motivation and behaviour. This study attempts to explain the relationship between social capital and career-related expectations and empirically assesses these associations by employing data from a survey administered to a representative sample of the Spanish population. Our findings suggest that the ability to mobilise network resources is positively linked with both measures of career advancement. However, access to the upper class is only positively associated with expecting a pay rise. Additionally, for non-employed individuals, higher mobilisation is positively associated with the expectation of an increase in income.

This paper examines the interplay between career concerns and market structure. Ability and effort are complements: effort increases the probability that a skilled agent achieves a one-time breakthrough. Wages are based on assessed ability and on expected output. Effort levels at different times are strategic substitutes and, as a result, the unique equilibrium effort and wage paths are single-peaked with seniority. Moreover, for any wage profile, the agent works too little, too late. Commitment to wages by competing firms mitigates these inefficiencies. In that case, the optimal contract features piecewise constant wages and severance pay.

Purpose - Although there is increasing evidence that the creative industries are essential to national economic growth as well as social and cultural well-being, creative graduates often find it difficult to become established professionally. This study aims to investigate the value of career management competence and intrinsic career motivations (as elements of \"protean career orientation\") in predicting positive graduate outcomes.Design methodology approach - Self-report surveys were administered to 208 creative industries graduates from two Australian universities at two points in time: at course completion, and one year later.Findings - The paper finds that individual career management competence and intrinsic work motivations, measured at course completion, were significant predictors of early career success, using both subjective and objective measures, measured one year later.Practical implications - This study suggests that an emphasis on student development beyond the traditional \"key\" employability skills may well be worthwhile. The paper also suggests a broad learning and teaching approach by which universities can encourage the development of student career identity, and thus engender student intrinsic career motivations and career self management skills and behaviours.Originality value - This is one of the first studies to demonstrate empirically a link between a particular set of skills and graduate outcomes. In addition, it provides insights into the role of student career motivations in positive transitions to the world of work in the creative industries.

Despite women's advancements in the workplace, gender inequality persists. We classify and test two frameworks used to explain gender differences in career success: unequal attributes and unequal effects. The unequal attributes framework suggests that gender is related to other attributes, which result in unequal career outcomes for men and women (i.e., a mediated effect). The unequal effects framework suggests that even when men and women share the same attribute or circumstances, they are rewarded differently, such that individual attributes have unequal effects on career outcomes for men and women (i.e., a moderated effect). We collected survey data from a gender-balanced sample of 394 business school alumni. Using structural equation modeling to test the unequal attributes framework, we found that work hours, career orientation, having a nonemployed spouse, and working in a predominantly female job were unequal attributes that explained gender differences in career success. Using multigroup path analysis to examine unequal effects, we found that being agentic, married, having children at home, and working in a predominantly female workplace had unequal effects in relation to career success for men and women. We find support for both models across three categories of career success antecedents (i.e., personal, family, and job attributes).