It appears that gender bias in the workplace is alive and well, however more cases of male gender bias were found here in the UK, while women still face an uphill climb in the states.

A study in the UK blames 'occupational segregation' for bias against male applicants for accounting and computer analyst positions.

Economists sent two fake applications for more than 400 jobs for chartered accountants, computer analysts, engineers, and secretaries. Each applicant had equal experience, qualifications, and age profiling, but one bore the name Emma and one was Phillip. Men were up to four times as likely as women to suffer bias when seeking jobs in accountancy and computer programming, The Guardian reported.

Judy Rich, an economist at Portsmouth Business School, a co-author of the study, told the newspaper, "These findings raise questions about why men are discriminated against. What's it saying about the embeddedness of sexual stereotypes in England? It suggests that legislation, which has been around to tackle sexual discrimination for 30 years, is making no inroad."

The results may suggest that employers are using "stealth affirmative action" to recruit more women into accountancy and computer programming jobs. Rich said, "There is no legislation which requires affirmative action, but perhaps some employers are preempting it in the accountancy and computing sectors, or they could be in the progress of resegregating and becoming more female, as was the case with bank tellers."

The study also showed women were half as likely than men to be asked for an interview for engineering jobs. Men were nearly four times less likely than women to get an interview for the secretarial posts.

Jenny Watson, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission in England, said: "Discrimination does occur against men, and it's important to tackle the barriers. However, women still suffer most from inequalities. Our recent survey found it will take 40 years for women to achieve equality in the boardroom."

Conversely, two recently completed studies in the US show that women are getting the short shrift in the workplace, not the other way around.