Gender selection
Genes, Gender Inequality, and Educational Attainment
Pamela Herd et al.
American Sociological Review, December 2019, Pages 1069-1098
Abstract:
Women's opportunities have been profoundly altered over the past century by reductions in the social and structural constraints that limit women's educational attainment. Do social constraints manifest as a suppressing influence on genetic indicators of potential, and if so, did equalizing opportunity mean equalizing the role of genetics? We address this with three cohort studies: the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS; birth years 1939 to 1940), the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health; birth years 1975 to 1982). These studies include a "polygenic score" for educational attainment, providing a novel opportunity to explore this question. We find that within the WLS cohort, the relationship between genetics and educational outcomes is weaker for women than for men. However, as opportunities changed in the 1970s and 1980s, and many middle-aged women went back to school, the relationship between genetic factors and education strengthened for women as they aged. Furthermore, utilizing the HRS and Add Health, we find that as constraints limiting women's educational attainment declined, gender differences in the relationship between genetics and educational outcomes weakened. We demonstrate that genetic influence must be understood through the lens of historical change, the life course, and social structures like gender.
Channeling others' biases to meet role demands
Andrea Vial, John Dovidio & Victoria Brescoll
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, May 2019, Pages 47-63
Abstract:
Five studies illuminate how the demands of the roles that people occupy can sometimes contribute to the maintenance of group inequality by promoting the accommodation of others' biases, even when those biases disadvantage an in-group or clash with personal views. When role demands to maximize candidate fit in hiring selections were strong, preference for job candidates of a given group tended to be lower when there were cues to third-party prejudice against that group (vs. no cues), irrespective of in-group favoritism effects (Studies 1-5) or participant attitudes (Studies 4 and 5). We found supporting evidence for the underlying processes in the context of hiring selections involving fictional groups (Study 1) as well as female job candidates (Studies 2-5). A concern with meeting the demands of the gatekeeper role was at the root of prejudice accommodation: When role-demands to prioritize candidate fit were strong, role-relevant considerations (interpersonal and task-focused) mediated the accommodation effect (Studies 1 and 4). The more gatekeepers in charge of hiring sought to meet role demands by considering the preferences of relevant third parties, the more they accommodated third-party prejudice (Study 2). Moreover, role-based concerns mediated the accommodation of prejudice - but not other potential considerations that were unrelated to role demands (Study 3). Finally, the accommodation effect was eliminated when the role definition did not prioritize candidate fit (Study 4) and when we experimentally reduced the strength of role-related concerns (Study 5). These findings illustrate the relevance of the role concept for understanding the social transmission of bias.
Youth national service and women's political ambition: The case of Teach For America
Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, Katharine Conn & Georgia Anderson-Nilsson
Politics, Groups, and Identities, December 2019, Pages 864-877
Abstract:
Could a prior history of activism through national service engender political ambition in women? We explore this question by examining Teach For America (TFA), as TFA is a prominent national service program that exposes participants to important policy issues, namely education inequality, is an attractive program to high-achieving women, and employs a selection model that allows for causal inference. A fuzzy regression discontinuity approach utilizing an original survey of over 32,000 TFA applicants and TFA's selection data for the 2007-2015 application cycles reveals that participation in national service causes women to be more politically ambitious. Effects appear to be are larger among women who have fewer financial and family responsibilities, and among women of color. These findings have broad implications for our understanding of what increases political ambition and identify a population that may be more easily recruited to run for political office.
Gender differences in communicative abstraction
Priyanka Joshi et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Drawing on construal level theory, which suggests that experiencing a communicative audience as proximal rather than distal leads speakers to frame messages more concretely, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction. In a meta-analysis of prior studies examining the effects of distance on communication, we find that women communicate more concretely than men when an audience is described as being psychologically close. These gender differences in linguistic abstraction are eliminated when speakers consider an audience whose distance has been made salient (Study 1). In studies that follow, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction in contexts where the nature of the audience is not specified. Across a written experimental context (Study 2), a large corpus of online blog posts (Study 3), and the real-world speech of congressmen and congresswomen (Study 4), we find that men speak more abstractly than women. These gender differences in speech abstraction continue to emerge when subjective feelings of power are experimentally manipulated (Study 5). We believe that gender differences in linguistic abstraction are the result of several interrelated processes - including but not limited to social network size and homogeneity, communication motives involving seeking proximity or distance, perceptions of audience homogeneity and distance, as well as experience of power. In Study 6, we find preliminary support for mediation of gender differences in linguistic abstraction by women's tendency to interact in small social networks. We discuss implication of these gender differences in communicative abstraction for existing theory and provide suggestions for future research.
Pathways to the Glass Cliff: A Risk Tax for Women and Minority Leaders?
Christy Glass & Alison Cook
Social Problems, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do women and racial/ethnic minority leaders pay a risk tax on their way to the top? Theories of the glass cliff have focused on the penalties imposed upon women and minority leaders due to bias and discrimination at the time of appointment to top leadership positions. Much less attention has focused on the strategic agency these leaders exercise in response to bias across the career. This paper advances theory and research on the glass cliff by analyzing the choices, decisions, and priorities of white women and people of color that, across the career, result in their appointment to glass cliff positions. Our analysis relies on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 33 senior leaders across a range of industries. Our findings suggest that rather than isolated instances of high-risk promotions, glass cliff appointments represent the culmination of a long-term career strategy centered on risk and risk-taking. We find evidence that these leaders pay a significant risk tax in order to achieve upward mobility in their organizations.
Balancing Professional Prototypes Increases the Valuation of Women in Male-Dominated Professions
Felix Danbold & Corinne Bendersky
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We tackle the persistent problem of people from specific demographic groups (e.g., women) being undervalued in professional contexts in which traits associated with their group do not align with the traits perceived to be essential for success (the professional prototype). We introduce the concept of balancing professional prototypes such that group membership becomes irrelevant to determining an individual's prototypicality. Using a novel technique called prototype inversion, we emphasize the importance of professional traits typically associated with an underrepresented group, without dismissing those associated with the currently prototypical group. By balancing the prototype in this way, it becomes easier to recognize the professional potential of members of underrepresented groups, without incurring backlash from the currently prototypical group. We conducted a full-cycle research project to demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy in the extreme context of women in firefighting using qualitative and quantitative methods and participants from both the laboratory and the field.
Words Matter: Experimental Evidence from Job Applications
Lisa Abraham & Alison Stein
Harvard Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
Women are underrepresented in certain jobs, particularly in STEM fields and the technology sector. It has been claimed that women in tech hold themselves to higher standards than their male counterparts when deciding whether to apply for a job. Thus, job postings that ask for "exceptional" expertise and a slew of bonus qualifications may disproportionately discourage women from applying if women believe they must meet all the listed qualifications. To investigate this hypothesis, we ran a randomized controlled trial on a sample of 60,000 potential applicants to over 600 of Uber's corporate U.S. job postings. Our treatment removed optional qualifications and softened language about the intensity of the qualifications. Job seekers meaningfully respond to language: our treatment significantly increased the total number of applications by 7 percent. Altering the language did not change the fraction of women who applied, but did close the gender skill gap. While female applicants in the control group are 6 percentage points significantly more likely to have graduate degrees than men applying for the same job, women and men in the treatment group are equally likely to have graduate degrees. Our results confirm the importance of language in the self-screening process: words matter in different ways for women and men of different educational backgrounds, and materially affect job seekers' economic outcomes.
Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Gender Gap for Securities and Exchange Commission Attorneys
Stephen Choi, Mitu Gulati & A.C. Pritchard
Journal of Law and Economics, August 2019, Pages 427-456
Abstract:
Most research on the gender gap in the legal profession focuses on the private sector. We look at the gender gap in a setting where one might expect the gaps to be smaller: the Division of Enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has a reputation for providing employees with good childcare and work flexibility. We find a substantial gender gap in assignments but only a modest one in pay. Men are also more likely to move laterally and more likely to move to lucrative private-sector jobs. What causes these gaps? The primary explanation for the gender gap from the extant literature is the gender differential in childcare. We do not find substantial evidence that having children affects pay and assignments at the SEC. The presence of children, however, does seem to affect the behavior of men and women differently in deciding when to leave the SEC.
Gender, peer advising, and college success
Jimmy Ellis & Seth Gershenson
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study leverages a natural experiment in which peer advisors (PA) were quasi-randomly assigned to first-year university students. Male students assigned to male peer advisors were significantly more likely to meet with their assigned PA, persist into the second year of postsecondary schooling, and graduate within four years. We find no such effect on male students' academic performance, nor do we find a same-sex PA effect on female students' use of the PA program or on subsequent academic outcomes.
Leaning In or Not Leaning Out? Opt-Out Choice Framing Attenuates Gender Differences in the Decision to Compete
Joyce He, Sonia Kang & Nicola Lacetera
NBER Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
In most organizations, promotions often require self-nomination and competition among applicants. However, research on gender differences in preferences for competition suggests that this process might result in fewer women choosing to participate. We study whether changing promotion schemes from a default where applicants must opt in (i.e., self-nominate) to a default where applicants must opt out (i.e., they are automatically considered for promotion, but can choose not to be considered) attenuates gender differences. In our first experiment, although women are less likely than men to choose competitive environments under the traditional opt-in framing, in the opt-out system both women and men have the same participation rate as men in the opt-in system. The increase in participation of women into competition is not associated with negative consequences on performance or well-being. In our second experiment, we show that opt-out framing does not entail penalties from evaluators making decisions about whom to hire. These results support the promise of choice architecture to reduce disparities in organizations. More generally, our findings suggest that gender differences in attitudes toward completion may be context-dependent.
When are women willing to lead? The effect of team gender composition and gendered tasks
Jingnan Chen & Daniel Houser
Leadership Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is a well-documented phenomenon that a group's gender composition can impact group performance. Understanding why and how this phenomenon happens is a prominent puzzle in the literature. To shed light on this puzzle, we propose and experimentally test one novel theory: through the salience of gender stereotype, a group's gender composition affects a person's willingness to lead a group, thereby impacting the group's overall performance. By randomly assigning people to groups with varying gender compositions, we find that women in mixed-gender groups are twice as likely as women in single-gender groups to suffer from the gender stereotype effect, by shying away from leadership in areas that are gender-incongruent. Further, we provide evidence that the gender stereotype effect persists even for women in single-gender groups. Importantly, however, we find that public feedback about a capable woman's performance significantly increases her willingness to lead. This result holds even in male-stereotyped environments.
When "decoy effect" meets gender bias: The role of choice set composition in hiring decisions
Steffen Keck & Wenjie Tang
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, forthcoming
Abstract:
A large body of research has found evidence that hiring decisions are frequently subject to strong gender bias and has explored factors that help to predict and prevent such a bias from occurring. In this paper, we explore a novel factor that has received only little attention: the composition of the choice set. Drawing on prior research on the attraction effect of decoys in consumer choice and personnel decisions, we posit that when decision makers need to decide whether to hire a male or a female applicant for a stereotypically male position, the presence of a third applicant whose profile is asymmetrically dominated by one of the two applicants can in many circumstances strongly increase the odds that the male applicant will be selected, but will not be beneficial for the female applicant. We test our hypotheses in five experimental studies with different designs, experimental settings, and participant pools - including managers with professional experience in hiring decisions. Our results provide robust evidence demonstrating the strong effects of choice set composition on the emergence of gender bias. In addition, we found that the presence of asymmetrically dominated applicants makes decision makers more confident in their biased decisions and more likely to implement them immediately without searching for further information. Finally, our results also provide some initial evidence that our results for stereotypically male positions will be reversed when hiring decisions are made for stereotypically female positions where the presence of decoys instead gives an advantage to female over male applicants.
How Do Gender Quotas Affect Workplace Relationships? Complementary Evidence from a Representative Survey and Labor Market Experiments
Edwin Ip, Andreas Leibbrandt & Joseph Vecci
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Gender quotas are frequently proposed to address persistent gender imbalances in managerial roles. However, it is unclear how quotas for female managers affect organizations and whether quotas improve or damage relationships between managers and their subordinates. We conduct a representative survey to study opinions on quotas for female managers and, based upon the survey, design a novel set of experiments to investigate how quotas influence wage setting and effort provision. Our findings reveal that both opinions about gender quotas and workplace behavior crucially depend on the workplace environment. In our survey, we observe that approval for gender quotas is low if women are not disadvantaged in the manager-selection process, regardless of whether there are gender differences in performance. Complementing this evidence, we observe in our experiments that quotas lead to lower effort levels and lower wages in such environments. By contrast, in environments in which women are disadvantaged in the selection process, we observe a higher approval of quotas as well as higher effort levels and higher wages. These findings are consistent with the concept of meritocracy and suggest that it is important to evaluate the perception of gender disadvantages in the workplace environment before implementing quotas.
Unequal Returns to Education: How Women Teachers Narrow the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge
Jason Giersch, Martha Kropf & Elizabeth Stearns
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Where it concerns traditional political knowledge, on average, men have outscored women. Research indicates that part of the knowledge gap originates before adulthood, and convincing work indicates it is likely the result of unequal returns to education. Yet, no research that we know has examined the role of educators. Given research about representative bureaucracy and how a gender match between student and teacher improves girls' performance in fields that they may otherwise perceive as dominated by men, we examine the theory's application to political knowledge. Using administrative data from five cohorts of public school students in North Carolina, we test the hypothesis that female students will do better on a state exam in civics and economics when their teacher is a woman. Results of our analyses support the hypothesis by revealing a small but significant narrowing of the gap in test scores when students have a female teacher.
Regional, institutional, and departmental factors associated with gender diversity among BS-level chemical and electrical engineering graduates
Laura Jarboe
PLoS ONE, October 2019
Abstract:
Engineering remains the least gender diverse of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. Chemical engineering (ChE) and electrical engineering (EE) are exemplars of relatively high and low gender diversity, respectively. Here, we investigate departmental, institutional, and regional factors associated with gender diversity among BS graduates within the US, 2010-2016. For both fields, gender diversity was significantly higher at private institutions (p < 1x10-6) and at historically black institutions (p < 1x10-5). No significant association was observed with gender diversity among tenure-track faculty, PhD-granting status, and variations in departmental name beyond the standard "chemical engineering" or "electrical engineering". Gender diversity among EE graduates was significantly decreased (p = 8x10-5) when a distinct degree in computer engineering was available; no such association was observed between ChE gender diversity and the presence of biology-associated degrees. States with a highly gender diverse ChE workforce had a significantly higher degree of gender diversity among BS graduates (p = 3x10-5), but a significant association was not observed for EE. State variation in funding of support services for K-12 pupils significantly impacted gender diversity of graduates in both fields (p < 1x10-3), particularly in regards to instructional staff support (p < 5x10-4). Nationwide, gender diversity could not be concluded to be either significantly increasing or significantly decreasing for either field.
Unemployment and men's entrance into female-dominated jobs
Jill Yavorsky & Janette Dill
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite the contraction of many male-dominated occupations, men have made limited progress in entering female-dominated jobs. Using monthly employment histories from the SIPP, we examine whether individual economic conditions - such as a period of unemployment - are associated with men subsequently pursuing female-dominated work. Specifically, we ask whether men are more likely to enter female-dominated jobs after unemployment, compared to men who take a new job directly from employment. We find that unemployment significantly increases the odds of men entering female-dominated work among men who make job transitions. By examining changes in occupational prestige as well as wage differences before and after unemployment, we also find that entering a female-dominated job (compared to other job types) may help men mitigate common scarring effects of unemployment such as wage losses and occupational prestige downgrades. Accordingly, this study reveals a critical occupational route that may allow men to remain upwardly mobile after involuntary unemployment.