We study gender spillovers in career advancement using eleven years of employer-employee matched data on white-collar workers at over 4,000 private sector workplaces in Norway. Our data allow us to define seven hierarchical ranks that are consistent across plants and over time and track promotions even for individuals who change employers. We find positive spillovers across ranks (flowing from higher-ranking to lower-ranking women) but negative spillovers within ranks. The finding of narrower gender gaps in promotions for workers with more female bosses suggests that policies that increase female representation in corporate leadership can have spillover benefits to women in lower ranks.

This paper exploits variation in the timing and outcomes of employment discrimination lawsuits against U.S. law enforcement agencies to estimate the cumulative and persistent employment effects of temporary externally imposed affirmative action (AA). We find that AA increased black employment at all ranks by 4.5 to 6.2 percentage points relative to national trends. We also find no erosion of these employment gains in the fifteen years following AA termination, although black employment growth was significantly lower in departments after AA ended than in departments whose plans continued. For women, in contrast, we find only marginal employment gains at lower ranks.