Equal Investments, Different Rewards: Gender Inequalities Among Israeli Lawyers

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically whether women in the legal profession in Israel experience discrimination in terms of earnings and career opportunities. The contribution of this study is threefold. On the theoretical level, we added psychological capital and career expectations to the commonly used variables. Second, we focused on an immigrant country in transition towards Westernization that presents an interesting mix of legal equality and traditional family values. Third, our analyses are based on a national mail survey of full-time lawyers in Israel.The findings of this study show that male lawyers are rewarded better than female lawyers for the number of hours worked per week as well as for their married status. We also found that female lawyers who expected more regarding economic reward earn less, while no relationship was found for male lawyers. Furthermore, the likelihood to attain partnership is much lower for female than for male lawyers after controlling for all relevant variables. The results indicate existence of discrimination.