Asymmetrical Demography Effects on Perceived Reward and Social Outcomes: Differential Effects of Leader Gender and Work Unit Gender Composition

One of the debates in the relational demography literature is the question of whether members of dominant and subordinate groups have different organizational experiences when they are in the numerical minority (Riordan, 2000). Status characteristics theory suggests that group status should matter such that members of dominant groups have relatively positive experiences in minority situations compared to members of subordinate groups. In contrast, relational demography perspectives have often emphasized the importance of similarity or dissimilarity over the impact of status. In this paper, we draw implications from both perspectives to make predictions regarding the impact of gender composition on perceptions of fairness, discrimination, organizational support, exclusion and harassment. We test our predictions on a large, nationally representative sample of Swedish medical doctors.