From Home to Corner Office: How Work–Life Programs Influence Women's Managerial Representation in Japan

Abstract

Although researchers have suggested that work–life programs (WLPs) help increase the representation of women in management (WIM), stigmatization and gender stereotyping can prevent this beneficial effect. We adopt a contingency approach by taking the roles of time, gender context, and the purposes of different practices into consideration and examine the effects of WLPs on WIM longitudinally. Our analysis of a sample of Japanese public firms spanning 14 years addresses endogeneity concerns and shows that: (1) increases in WLPs are weakly associated with subsequent increases in the proportion of WIM within firms; (2) this positive effect is stronger in organizations where the percentage of female employees is growing; and (3) there is no evidence to suggest an effect in the opposite direction. We further propose different temporal patterns by which the effects of flexibility practices (e.g., remote work) and resource practices (e.g., childcare benefits) emerge due to the varying degree of changes in job structures and work norms involved in their implementation. Our analysis provides supportive evidence that the effects of flexibility practices that require more changes inconveniencing decision-makers, users, and coworkers take longer to emerge compared to resource practices that incur fewer changes and inconveniences. These findings contribute to a more detailed understanding of the WLPs–WIM relationship and offer insights for research on WLPs and women's career advancement.