Despite strides made towards workplace equality and women CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies reaching an all time high this year, American workers still slightly prefer a male boss to a female boss, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Thirty-three percent of U.S. workers said they prefer a male boss to a female boss in a new job; 20 percent said they would prefer a female boss and 46 percent said it would not make a difference, the poll found.
Women were more likely to prefer a female boss at 25 percent. However, 39 percent of women would still prefer a male boss. Thirty-four percent of women said it made no difference.
Among men, 26 would prefer a male boss, 14 percent would prefer a female boss and 58 percent said it made no difference.
Even with the popularity of Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In,” encouraging women to be career minded, Gallup reported that Americans’ views of female bosses are largely unchanged since the 1980s, when the polling agency began asking the question.
“While the percentage who prefer a female boss has grown over the last 60 years, it has never passed 25%,” Gallup reported.
However, since 2002, the greatest number of Americans say the sex of their boss makes no difference.
The poll was conducted via telephone Aug. 7-10 and included a random sampling of 1,032 adults age 18 and over living in the U.S. and the District of Columbia. It has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
By Jennifer Pompi
