Fewer women than men secure jobs informally through workplace social contacts, a study says. Author Steve McDonald, a sociologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, analysed results from a US Bureau of Labor Statistics study of 3,200 people between 1979 and 1998, in which respondents specified how they made job transitions. He found that as men accumulate time in a field, they become more likely to be recruited for new jobs by their workplace contacts. Women are not recruited in the same way, possibly because their social workplace interactions focus less on work, and because their contacts don't have recruiting and hiring authority, McDonald suggests. The study will be published in Social Science Research in November.