Kolopp, Sarah
Moving to the private sector: A man's business?
- 2021.
89
This article seeks to answer this question by analyzing the revolving door from the Treasury to the banking sector (a traditional avenue to top executive positions in banking and finance in France) from the point of view of gender. Since the 1960s, the Treasury has been operating an “up or out” policy, thereby populating the executive echelons of a wide range of public and private organizations with its former top officials. Drawing on biographical interviews and on the prosopographical analysis of the careers of top male and female bureaucrats at the Treasury, this article shows that leaving the Treasury for the banking sector is the privilege of men. It provides two explanations for the sex-segregation of post-Treasury career paths. It shows, first, that the typical demographics of Treasury men and Treasury women are different and shape different approaches to career advancement. It shows, secondly, how organizational practices at the Treasury tend to sift male and female bureaucrats into different and hierarchized professional destinies. More generally, the article shows that looking at the revolving door from a gender perspective yields key insights into processes of differentiation and marginalization in elite public service.