Career patterns of executive women in finance: An optimal matching analysis

This article examines the objective and subjective facets of female finance-executive careers. Optimal matching and qualitative analyses are used to show how the careers are shaped by workplace structures and by the early 1970s enforcement of women's employment rights. Changing opportunity structures in turn shaped respondents' perspectives. Many younger respondents were unaware that their mobility was partly due to the creative action of their female predecessors and took personal credit for their own rapid progress. Finally, it appears that as women have experienced more freedom in pursuing finance careers, their career trajectories have become more rigid.