Does gender discrimination exist in the promotion of CPAs? : evidence based on the CPA firm transformation

In this paper, we examine the gender discrimination issue in the promotion process of CPAs under the background of CPA firms’ organizational transformation in China. We find that there are significant gender differences when CPAs are promoted to the partner position. We further explore whether the economic contribution of a CPA, his/her audit quality, and the psychological difference among different genders could explain the above gender differences. However, we did not find any supporting evidence. We even find that the female candidates provide significantly higher audit quality than their male competitors in the promotion year. Our empirical evidence indicates that females face higher promotion standards than male CPAs when they are promoted to the partner position. There is significant gender discrimination during the promotion process in CPA firms. Our paper contributes to the study of CPA promotion mechanism, and provides empirical evidence on the gender discrimination in promotion.