Gender imbalances in public administration in Armenia: the role of stereotypes

Abstract

The essay focuses on gender stereotypes among civil servants in Armenian executive agencies. Many scholars emphasized the important role of stereotypes in existing gender imbalance in upper levels of public administration, when women have generally been well represented at the lower levels of the public service, but underrepresented in the higher ranks, where more policy-making takes place. The importance of women at the top levels of decision-making is best understood through the lens of representative bureaucracy, which provides a concept about how bureaucracy fits into a democratic polity. Based on literature, certain variables were defined and explored during the study. Gender role socialization, organizational barriers, and stereotyping are considered by many authors as main causes for women’s exclusion from decision-making. The research was designed to reveal possible gender stereotypes among employees of three different ministries of the Republic of Armenia, with the particular emphasis on comparing and contrasting actual phenomena and people’s perception of them. Women are underrated in terms of education, experience, aspiration to promotion, leader’s qualities, and in general, were considered as unable to supervise and hold higher positions. At the same time, women themselves partly hold up this viewpoint. The results generally supported the proposed hypothesis that existing gender stereotypes are a significant cause of women’s exclusion from the top levels of decision-making in public administration in Armenia.