The Influence of Gender on Civil Servants’ Career Development: A Longitudinal Civil Service Personnel Database Analysis
Don-Yun Chen, Yu-Chin Chien, Chung-Pin Lee, Kaiju Chang, Yu-Feng Chen, Chin-Yu Lin
Abstract
Did gender influence a public employee’s promotion? According to the 2018 statistics published by the authorities, the proportions of women serving in government was still rising in recent years. However, the propotions of women in the high rank was only 34.6%, much lower than the men.
In order to observe the influence of public employee’s gender on career development, we used the official personnel data collected by government. The longitudinal data extended over 25 years. We selected those who joined the public service after having passed the examination of the senior level as a criterion. The samples stood at 50,354. The dependent variable was whether the public employee had been promoted to level 10.
Besides social demographic variables, we put ability variables and organization variable into the model. We used survival analysis to test the model. This result showed that gender mattered, especially for those who joined the civil service in the 1992-1999 period. The results on those joining the service prior to 1992 and after 1999 were not known, owing to data collection and the personnel laws. Further studies are needed to see how gender affects a civil servant’s career development during these two periods.
Keywords: promotion, civil service, gender, survival analysis, gender mainstreaming