Do External Labor Market Job Switches Affect the Gender Compensation Gap

This paper investigates how external mobility influences the gender compensation gap for job switching executives. Using proprietary data for 2,034 executive placements from a global search firm, we find job switching narrows the gender gap by 45%, from 11% to 6%. We hypothesize and find evidence that the decline is more marked in positions where qualified women candidates are relatively scarce, such as high-rank positions, and those in industries and functions with fewer women. We interpret this as evidence of firms’ willingness to pay a premium for qualified women candidates in these situations.