Executive Careers of Slovak Ministers and State Secretaries from a Gender Perspective

The aim of the research paper is to compare the career paths leading to the nomination of Ministers and State Secretaries in Slovakia according to their gender. Authors have collected a unique dataset with 242 cases of nominations from 2002 to 2018, out of which 40 cases are female State Secretaries and female Ministers. Based on Blondel and Thiébaultʹs typology of executive careers (specialists vs. generalists) and Gehrling and Müllerʹs typology (independent experts, experts with political background, party members) we conducted Chi-square Tests of Independence and have found that Slovak female ministers and State Secretaries indeed have significantly different career paths leading to executive nominations in comparison to their male peers. Regarding the typology of Blondel and Thiébault, Slovak female executive leaders were more often specialists in comparison to male executives who were generalists. According to Gehling and Müllerʹs typology, female executive leaders were more often nominated to their office with the previous career of independent experts than male executive leaders, who were more often party members.