Choice or pre-determined path? Women in investment management - Why so few?

Sheerin, Corina (2011) Choice or pre-determined path? Women in investment management - Why so few? In: Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance. Academic Publishing, Reading, UK, pp. 515-523. ISBN 9781908272164

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Abstract

Traditionally banking and finance have been male domains, however in recent years women have been attempting to challenge this status quo. However, Investment Management and the trading floor (despite being the most lucrative sub sector of the industry) stubbornly remains “a jungle of chest-pounding males”. This paper aims to address the current gap in the literature concerning the educational choices, and subsequent career orientated decisions, made by women which lead them to opt into or out of careers in financial services and in particular Investment Management. Within the educational and labour market, a plethora of choices exist for men and women in terms of programmes of study and occupations Equally a wide range of theories have been put forward in the literature to explain women’s educational and subsequent occupational choices, however to date very little focus has been placed on financial services specifically. Theories from disparate disciplines including: sociology, gender studies, psychology and economics have been examined and explored over time and while all add value, no one theory explains educational and occupational choice fully. What is common across the literature however is that choice is a multifaceted, intricate process which is dynamic and complex. This paper concentrates on one strand of the literature, namely the individual factors which have been put forward to explain the existence of gendered behavior in educational and occupational choice with particular focus on male dominated fields. This research will contribute to the literature by exploring whether men and women’s educational and occupational choice differ not because of stereotypes embedded by society, family and institutions, but because of our neurological makeup. Specifically this research aims to address whether biology contributes to explaining the underrepresentation of women within Investment Management.

Item Type:	Book Section
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance > Investment > Investment Companies. Investment Trusts. Mutual Funds. H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Issues of Labour and Work > Classes of Labour > Women and Work
Divisions:	School of Business > Staff Research and Publications
Depositing User:	Caoimhe Ní Mhaicín
Date Deposited:	15 May 2014 17:53
Last Modified:	29 Nov 2014 11:07
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/1238

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