The odd woman out: An (in)congruity analysis of gender stereotyping in gender‐dominant public sector professions

• Published date: 01 May 2024
• Author: Katharina Dinhof,Jurgen Willems
• Date: 01 May 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13703

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The odd woman out: An (in)congruity analysis of gender

stereotyping in gender-dominant public sector professions

Katharina Dinhof | Jurgen Willems

Institute for Public Management & Governance,

WU Vienna University of Economics and

Business, Vienna, Austria

Correspondence

Katharina Dinhof, Institute for Public

Management & Governance, WU Vienna

University of Economics and Business, Vienna,

Austria.

Email: katharina.dinhof@wu.ac.at

Funding information

Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Grant/Award

Number: P36098-G

Abstract

Public sector professions are highly gender-dominant (e.g., police officers,

teachers) and determined not only by professionals but also by gender roles.

According to the role congruity theory, these social roles result in perceived (in)

congruities between the jobholders’gender and gender-dominant professions.

This research investigates this intersection for several professions. Throughout

three large-scale surveys (conducted in Austria), we first document the gender

dominance of various public sector professions, and further analyze the effects

from (in)congruities in gender-dominant professions. The findings are two-fold:

First, for police officers, firefighters, politicians, nurses, and teachers, (in)congruities

of job-holder’s gender with gender dominance of the profession result in positive

(negative) ascriptions of job-related traits. However, (in)congruity effects are not

confirmed for other gender-dominant professions outside the public sector. Sec-

ond, no (in)congruity effects are found for perceived professionalism. Findings are

important for policy makers, as well as recruiters and employers who aim to

reduce gender-related disadvantages within public sector employment.

Evidence for practice

•Effective equality measures require empirical knowledge about the stereotypic

ascriptions and perceived incongruities for several (public) professions.

•Several public sector professions are highly gender-dominant: Firefighters, police

officers, and politicians are perceived and preferred by the public opinion as men-

dominated professions; however, nurses, teachers, sales employees, and social

entrepreneurs are perceived and preferred as women-dominated professions.

•The negative effects of gender incongruity in professions should be reduced with

organizational practices and policies aimed at enhancing equal opportunities.

•The finding that women are more often perceived to be incongruent in men-

dominated public sector professions, compared to men in women-dominated

professions, shows the need for more advanced policy measures toward gender

equality.

•Beliefs about gender roles and the resulting incongruities in public sector pro-

fessions are deeply rooted in citizens’beliefs, and continued updates to public

sector policies might not be enough unless they focus on cultural change

beyond the direct decision power of public sector decision-makers.

INTRODUCTION

The public sector contains a broad range of professions, of

which some are highly gender-dominant (Bishu &

Headley, 2020). For example, a majority of women in the

public workforce work in what are traditionally considered

women’s jobs, such as nurses and teachers (Organization

for Economic Co-operation and Development Organization

Received: 19 July 2022 Revised: 26 June 2023 Accepted: 12 July 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13703

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

© 2023 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

Public Admin Rev. 2024;84:519–543. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar 519

(OECD), 2019). Similarly, men are clearly overrepresented in

protective and uniformed services, such as police officers

and firefighters (United Nations Economic Commission for

Europe (UNECE), 2017; International Labour Organization

(ILOSTAT), 2020).

Evidently, men and women are perceived differently

based on stereotypical conceptions of social roles. Accord-

ing to gender roles, men and women are separately

ascribed traits (i.e., gender-typed traits) and behaviors

believed to be desirable for each sex (Eagly & Karau, 2002).

In that sense, women are expected to occupy social roles

related to communal characteristics and activities such as

caring or educating. Men are assumed to share agentic

characteristics perceived as necessary in domains marked

by power and authority, such as leadership positions or

protective services (e.g., Ditonto & Mattes, 2018;Krueger

et al., 2003; Sczesny, 2003).

Within the workforce, men and women are assessed

not only in regard to their alignment with gender roles but

also on their professional affiliation (i.e., professional role;

Eagly, 2013;Wood&Eagly,2012;Fiske2019;He

et al., 2019). Thus, stereotypical conceptions exist for two

social roles—the gender role and the professional role.

Drawing from role-congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002),

these two roles are examined with regard to their fit. When

gender roles are recognized as compliant with the respec-

tive professional role (i.e., role-congruent), rather than non-

compliant (i.e., role-incongruent), jobholders are evaluated

more positively (Eagly, 2013; Eagly & Karau, 2002). The

resulting role (in)congruities shape the assessment of men

and women in a certain job, andthus, substantially contrib-

ute to perpetuating gender inequality (e.g., Gartzia &

Baniandrés, 2019; Stewart & McDermott, 2004).

Against this background, the question is whether

women and men working respectively in men- and women-

dominated public sector professions are perceived

differently—due to gender incongruity—with respect to

job-related traits and professionalism. This research question

is answered by first documenting the perceived gender

dominance of 14 professions (study 1 (pre-study),

n=1193), and subsequently test hypotheses on how

women and men are assessed differently with respect to

job-related traits and professionalism in a selection of men-

and women-dominated professions (study 2, n=1282;

study 3, n=1212). Through this sequence of studies that

build on each other, we can first verify the widely held

assumptions of gender dominance of professions, to further

test hypotheses on the effect of (in)congruity on perceived

traits and professionalism of people working in these

professions.

The studies are carried out in Austria, which is very

comparable to many other countries, including those in

the EU and the US, with respect to strong gender-

dominant public sector professions (Johnston, 2019;

OECD, 2019). Hence, Austria provides a suitable context

for studying the effects of gender-related (in)congruities,

as the country’s private and public sector labor market is

also characterized by relatively strong gender-specific

segregation and distribution of paid and unpaid work, fol-

lowing the male breadwinner tradition (Bergmann et al.,

2019; Federal Chancellery Republic of Austria, Directorate

General for Women and Equality, 2022).

Focusing on the intersection of gender and profes-

sional roles, this research offers important implications.

Theoretically, we not only verify the premises of role con-

gruity theory for two prevalent social roles, but also

broaden its scope by (1) focusing on horizontal career

management as various different men- and women-

dominated professions are researched at the same hierar-

chical level, (2) and the (in)congruity effects tested on a

large number of job-relevant traits, and perceived profes-

sionalism, in (3) a large-scale, representative sample. More-

over, a contribution is made to the recent public

administration literature by deepening the understanding

of citizen-state interactions (Bartels 2013), specifically in

regard to public sector stereotypes (de Boer, 2020;

Willems, 2020;Döring&Willems,2023; Bertram et al. 2022;

Dinhof et al., 2023) and point out incongruities as relevant

obstacles to representative bureaucracy (Bishu &

Kennedy, 2020).

Practically, the findings provide necessary insights

regarding (1) the public opinion on perceived and preferred

gender dominance in several public sector professions and

yield a better understanding of (2) the perceived competen-

cies and professionalism of individuals as a result of the (in)

congruities for jobholders’gender and professional role

images. According to the OECD toolkit for mainstreaming

and implementing gender equality (OECD, 2018), the docu-

mentation of gender dominance and gender preferences in

employment provides an essential step toward the aim of a

more gender-equal society. Such standardized documenta-

tion enables more accurate identification of areas in which

actions on gender equality measures are still needed and

thereby contributes to legitimizing decision instruments for

cause-specific measures (OECD, 2018).

Relatedly, perceived incongruities between the

gender of the jobholders and certain men- or women-

dominated professions play a role in employment dis-

crimination and thus explain the lack of diverse represen-

tation in the public workforce (Koch et al. 2015). Given

the societal debates on gender norms and the demand

for a more diverse and representative public workforce,

our research provides an empirical baseline for a better

understanding of the effect of societal (gender) norms on

public sector decision-making (Bishu & Heckler, 2021;

Human Development Report Office of the United Nations

Development Programme, 2023).

While policy measures can create conditions that pro-

mote equal access to employment (such as the designs of

job descriptions, mentoring programs, the reassessment

of diversity policies, and debasing initiatives), it is above

all important to explicitly target the socially anchored

norms leading to those incongruities (Clarke, 2020;

Eagly & Koenig, 2021). (Public) organizations can play an

520 ANALYSIS OF GENDER STEREOTYPING IN GENDER-DOMINANT