Race, Glass Ceilings, and Lower Pay for Equal Work

Using detailed administrative data that allow us to observe who is eligible for promotion when, we document that Black patent examiners at the U.S. patent office face substantial glass ceilings: Black examiners who are definitely promotion-eligible are 30% less likely to be timely promoted to the top grade than equally qualified White examiners and take 13% longer to reach the top of the career ladder, while working harder and earning less along the way. Promotion gaps disappear when supervisors face higher costs of not timely promoting Black examiners. Black supervisors who were promoted slowly themselves tend to promote Black examiners particularly slowly. Promotion gaps hurt examiner productivity and contribute to the growing backlog of unexamined patent applications.