Consequences of mentoring on career advancement: does protégé gender make a difference?

The aim of this study was to assess if mentoring is more related to women's career advancement than men's. The study was prospective, gathering a Time 1 sample of 5019 Australian respondents who reported a mentor. The Time 2 sample a year later comprised 3220 respondents. Controlling individual, job, and organizational variables, mentor support in interaction with protégé gender predicted increased managerial advancement and reduced plateauing a year later. Career and psychosocial support differed in their relationships. Mentor career support predicted women's managerial advancement and reduced plateauing more than men's, whereas mentor psychosocial support predicted men's more than women's. Overall, protégé gender did not interact with mentor gender to predict career advancement. However, when the mentors were women, not men, career support reduced, and psychosocial support increased, the plateauing of women protégés more than men protégés. Why mentoring was differently related to men's and women's career outcomes was discussed.