A new study published by researchers at Stanford and the University of Chicago finds that women who work as financial advisers and stockbrokers face tougher sanctions for slip-ups at work than their male colleagues do. In fact, women in wealth management 56 percent more likely to get fired after a mistake than men.
This is the case even though men are three times more likely than women to engage in misconduct that costs their firms money, including fraud and negligence. Men are also twice as likely to make a mistake again.
Regardless of gender, financial advisers who break the rules are likely to do it again. Male advisers who were reprimanded are five times as likely to transgress as someone with a perfect track record would be – and female rule breakers are four times as likely.
Heightening the unjust situation, men who lose their jobs for their mistakes are more likely to be rehired within a year.
“The financial advisory industry is willing to give male advisers a second chance,” the authors conclude, “while female advisers are likely to be cast from the industry.”