Multiple Gender Contexts and Employee Rewards

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Abstract
The authors explore the effects of multiple gender contexts on the material and social psychological rewards of men and women in one organization, a U. S. military depot. By multiple gender contexts is meant that employees are situated in departments, job ladders (internal labor markets), and hierarchical ranks (civil service paygrades) with varying gender compositions or proportions of women and men. Five hypotheses are tested that concern women's and men's dispersion in the depot and the influence of multiple gender contexts on their earnings and satisfaction. The results indicate that women are less broadly dispersed than are men with the result that many job ladder and hierarchical locations have many or few women; and that, net of their human capital and responsibility, women and men who are situated in job ladders or at hierarchical levels with more women earn less. Tests for Kanter's, Blalock's, and Blau/Skvoretz's theories about the effects of relative proportions on intergroup relations and satisfaction show less support for Kanter and Blalock than for Blau/Skvoretz. The authors find that women enjoy working in woman-populous departments and job ladders. Men are less satisfied when their hierarchical level contains more women but they are more satisfied when their job ladder contains more women. The implications of the authors' findings for future research are discussed.