Three Papers on Work-Life Supports and Gender Diversity in the Federal Government

Abstract

It is often argued that work-life programs are important for promoting gender equality in the federal government, but whether and how these programs benefit women is the source of debate. According to the theory of representative bureaucracy, gender diversity is especially important in the civil service. Yet the argument that work-life programs benefit women's bureaucratic representation is frequently assumed and rarely tested. This dissertation addresses the question of whether work-life supports promote gender diversity in federal employment, using survey data on federal employees and agency data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to analyze different dimensions of this question in three papers. The first paper asks whether work-life supports, including program satisfaction, supervisor support, and senior leadership support, are gendered predictors of job satisfaction among federal employees. The second paper explores whether agencies with higher aggregate levels of work-life program satisfaction and managerial support for work-life see gains in gender diversity over time, utilizing multiple conceptually distinct measures of diversity to do so. The third paper examines gender differences in the effects of using work-life strategies for federal career advancement. The results demonstrate that work-life is not a "women's issue," but it is gendered and offers opportunities for promoting a more diverse and inclusive federal workforce.