Researchers Seth Carnahan, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and Brad Greenwood, PhD, assistant professor at Philadelphia-based Temple University, analyzed promotion rates between 2007 and 2012 from the nation’s top 200 law firms and compared them with political donation records and other information. They found women have more difficulty becoming partner when their bosses make more political contributions to Republicans than Democrats, according to the report.
In their research, Drs. Carnahan and Greenwood considered a boss conservative if they donated twice as much to Republicans than Democrats over the last 10 years, and vice versa for liberal bosses. They found that to begin with, women were half as likely to be promoted, but this gap increased with male conservative bosses to 80 percent, according to the report. It also showed firms with male conservative leaders had more trouble keeping women on the team, according to the report.
The report notes these findings do not show discrimination among conservative leaders, but they do indicate that something in conservative law firms is holding women back.
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