Insee Première · September 2022 · n° 1920

Supervising: a task with a low proportion of women, but not only for managers

In 2021, 13% of employees had the main task of supervising the work of other employees. The majority of these were executives or had a middle-management profession (50% and 33%), but 16% were white or blue-collar workers.

For a given socio-professional group, men supervise more often than women do: 63% of supervisors are men. The function of supervisor is more frequent with advancing age. There are more supervisors in the private sector than in the civil service. The share of managers is highest in construction and industry.

Supervision goes hand in hand with a greater workload and more flexible working hours. On average in 2021, 35% of managers had worked evenings at least once in the previous four weeks, compared to 22% of employees without managerial tasks.

Three groups emerge: managers in the private sector, with a high volume of working hours, middle managers in the private sector, often working 35 hours a week, and supervisors in the public sector, with more women and part-time jobs, but also with heavy and atypical hours.