Glass Ceilings or Sticky Floors?

According to surprising raw data from the British Household Panel Survey, full-time women are more likely than men to be promoted. Controlling for observed and unobserved individual heterogeneity, we find that women are promoted at roughly the same rate as men, but receive smaller wage increases consequent upon promotion. These facts contradict the conventional view that 'glass ceilings' limit the promotion of women. They are consistent with our new 'sticky floors' model of discrimination where women are just as likely as men to be promoted, but find themselves stuck at the bottom of the wage scale for the new grade.