Penn Study Finds Gender Pay Gap at Wall Street Firms

Janice F. Madden, professor of regional science, sociology, urban studies, and real estate at the University of Pennsylvania, recently completed a study showing a significant gender pay gap on Wall Street. Professor Madden’s data shows that women stockbrokers earned, on average, 20 percent less than their male counterparts.

Madden was retained as an expert witness in a sexual discrimination lawsuit filed by women at two major brokerage firms. As a result, she was given access to a wide range of employment and commission data at the firms. The women in the lawsuit claimed that they were given less support than their male counterparts and were assigned less desirable accounts.

Professor Madden is a graduate of the University of Denver. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Duke University. She has been on the faculty at Penn since 1972.

The study, “Performance-Support Bias and the Gender Pay Gap Among Stockbrokers,” appears in the June issue of Gender & Society.