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Abstract

The underrepresentation of women in Economics is nowhere as visible as in central banks. In a new paper, we use anonymised personnel data to analyse the career progression of men and women at the ECB. A wage gap in favour of men emerges within a few years of hiring, with one important driver being the presence of children. Women were also less likely to be promoted to a higher salary band up until 2010, when the ECB issued a statement supporting diversity and took measures to support gender balance. Following this change, the promotion gap disappears. This results from a lower probability of women to apply for promotion, combined with a higher probability of women to be selected conditional on having applied. Competition from other candidates partly explains this applications gap. Following promotion, women perform better in terms of salary progression, suggesting that the higher probability to be selected is based on merit, not positive discrimination.