¶ … individual's gender is an important factor that influences their career, success, and even their subjective evaluation of their career (e.g., Orser & Leck, 2010; Schneidhofer, Schiffinger, & Mayrhofer, 2010). A number of different models have been proposed to explain how a person's gender influences one's vocational aspirations, career choice, and perceived success (see Schoon & Eccles, 2014). These influences affect both objective and subjective measures of career success/attainment. For example, Orser and Leck (2010) examined how gender moderates objective career factors as well as subjective career factors. Data was collected from a large sample of male and female managers, executives, and CEOs (N = 521). Two objective dependent measures of success were collected: 1) total compensation (annual salary, bonuses, and other financial remuneration) and 2) ascendancy (defined by the number of reporting levels below the participant). One subjective dependent measure was also collected (personal opinion regarding how successful the participant believed that they were). Several independent predictor variables were utilized (e.g., education, family responsibilities, partnered or not, eldercare responsibilities, experience, organizational size, and gender) in a stepwise multiple regression analysis to determine the influence of the predictor variables on the outcome variables. Even controlling for the effects of all of the other...

The researchers determined that one's gender is a moderator variable that influences objective and subjective measures of career success; however, there may be a discriminatory influence of gender as well.
Herrbach and Mignonac (2012) analyzed responses from 300 female employees at a major telecommunications company in France. Using a hierarchal regression model the researchers investigated the relationship between gender and other demographic variables on the subjective feelings of success of the participants as well as several career anchors (a person's major career drive). The level of the participants' perceived gender discrimination was negatively associated to their subjective feelings of success; however, moderated this relationship such that one's managerial drives or technical level sought increased perceived impact of discrimination, whereas individuals driven by autonomy and security reported lower feelings of gender discrimination.

One limiting factor of the research is that gender is treated as a dichotomous variable (e.g., male/female). Schneidhofer, Schiffinger and Mayrhofer (2010) looked the effect of at gender role type (GRT) on an individual's income level. GRT was comprised of four levels (masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated) thus allowing for more explanatory power. Longitudinal…