The theory of representative bureaucracy centers on the assumption that if the civil service workforce reflects the characteristics of the public, the values, preferences and interests of the public will be reflected in the... [ view full abstract ]
The theory of representative bureaucracy centers on the assumption that if the civil service workforce reflects the characteristics of the public, the values, preferences and interests of the public will be reflected in the decisions made by the government. Following up the many studies on gender representation in bureaucracy (e.g. Dolan, 2000; 2002), this paper focuses on women in leadership positions in the Dutch government. Gender representativeness in the senior civil service (SCS) is particularly important, as these positions entail high levels of discretion and subsequently impact governmental decision-making.
Although women have been underrepresented in the SCS in the Netherlands for decades, as has been the case in most Western European countries, the number and share of female leaders have been on the rise since the new millennium (Groeneveld, 2009). However, there are also some signals that due to cutbacks, women’s representation has stalled in recent years. As government is forced to cut back spending, including spending on their own administrative apparatus, it also tends to reduce the workforce (Holzer, Lee & Newman, 2003). This paper examines how and why cutbacks and workforce reductions are associated with changes in the representation of women in the Dutch SCS.
The paper builds on two opposing hypotheses. The first hypothesis asserts that female representation in SCS decreases, as well as in the civil service workforce in general, because of women’s overrepresentation in employee turnover and because of stalling careers. As women on average have shorter tenure than men they may fall victim to a ‘last in, first out’ rule to be applied when organizations are forced to downsize. Furthermore, compared to men, women are more often on temporary contracts, which makes layoffs easier. On top of this it can be expected that in times of crisis and severe cutbacks, diversity is not addressed as a managerial priority anymore. Within times of crisis, a conservative climate is created (Levine, 1984) in which managers regress to “the safety of traditional values and old behavior” (Raudla, Savi & Randma-Liiv, 2012: p. 34).
In contrast, the second hypothesis asserts that since leadership in times of crisis is expected to be difficult and risky (Pollitt, 2010), relatively more women get into top positions within government in times of austerity and downsizing. Glass cliff theory states that women are more likely to be promoted to positions which face a higher risk of failure (Ryan & Haslam, 2007; Sabharwal, 2015; Smith & Monaghan, 2011). Some studies showed that organizations in crisis change strategy and want to break with a leadership based on male stereotypes. Women may also end up in ‘glass cliff’ positions, because men more often move to more secure career opportunities.
We use longitudinal data from the Dutch government on the number of male and female employees in Dutch public organizations, by department and by hierarchical level. In order to test the hypotheses, we examine changes in the percentage of women in SCS positions relative to changes in the total numbers and female representation at lower hierarchical levels.
