Elizabeth
Gorman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia.
She earned her bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard University,
and holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in sociology from
Harvard. Before beginning her graduate studies in sociology, she practiced
law for five years in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Professor
Gorman's research interests lie in the areas of organizations, work, and professions,
and gender and other bases of inequality. One current focus examines gender
differences in mobility and attainment within organizations. A recent article
in the American Sociological Review demonstrates the impact of gender stereotypes
on hiring by showing that organizations with more stereotypically masculine
criteria hire fewer women while those with more stereotypically feminine criteria
hire more women. Another article, forthcoming in Social Forces, finds that
firms are less likely to promote women when the nature of their work is less
predictable and requires greater exercise of judgment. A current project examines
the relationship between firms' cultural norms concerning training and mentoring
and women's chances of promotion.
Another stream
of her research investigates gender and family-based differences in work-related
behavior and attitudes. In an article published in the Journal of Marriage
and the Family, she showed that married men's job-shifting patterns account
for a portion of their earnings advantage over single men. Another study,
published in Work and Occupations, found that making money is a more important
value for both married men and women than for their single counterparts. Findings
from a current project show that, in both Britain and the United States, women
report that their jobs require greater effort than men say their jobs do,
and this effect is not explained by either job characteristics or family demands.
She has
also examined changes in the legal profession and their impact on law firms.
A recent essay in the North Carolina Law Review discusses possible causes
and implications of the trend among large law firms to establish their own
in-house general counsel positions. In a paper published in the Law and Society
Review, she showed that law firms that are more deeply affected by recent
changes in the professional environment – in particular, the increasing
complexity of work, the weakening of client ties, and the decline of collegiality
in organizational cultures - are more likely to create "permanent"
positions resembling the bureaucratic employment model rather than the traditional
"up-or-out" model.
Professor
Gorman teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels on organizations,
work, gender, and quantitative methods.