Glass Ceiling Installation
Practice What You Preach: The Gender Pay Gap in Labor Union Compensation
Rachel Aleks, Tina Saksida & Sam Kolahgar
Industrial Relations, October 2021, Pages 403-435
Abstract:
The existence of a gender pay gap has been well established in the literature but has remained unexplored within unions. Using 2000–2019 LM-2 data, our study quantifies the gender pay gap among union officers and staff in United States national and local unions. We find evidence that women face a gender wage penalty, with female officers in local unions and female staff in both national and local unions being paid significantly less than their male counterparts.
Employee Non-compete Agreements, Gender, and Entrepreneurship
Matt Marx
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
I contribute to the literature on institutions, gender, and entrepreneurship by showing that macrolevel institutional policies that do not explicitly target women nonetheless discourage them from leveraging prior professional experience -- their own and that of others -- in founding new ventures. Most ventures fail, but chances of success are greater if founders can bring to bear their professional expertise. However, employee non-compete agreements enjoin workers from leaving their employer to found a rival business in the same industry. Thus, non-competes add legal risk to business risk. To the extent that women exhibit greater risk aversion, the threat of litigation from their ex-employer may act as a sharper brake on startup activity than for men. Examining all workers who were employed exclusively within 25 states and the District of Columbia from 1990 to 2014, I find that women subject to tighter non-compete policies were less likely to leave their employers and start rival businesses. Non-competes increase the risk of entrepreneurship by making it harder to hire talent with relevant experience, shifting women away from higher potential ventures. A review of thousands of filed lawsuits suggests that firms do not target women in non-compete cases. Rather, it appears that non-competes disproportionately discourage women from leveraging their professional networks in hiring the sort of talent necessary for high-growth startups to succeed.
Unpacking the Status-Leveling Burden for Women in Male-Dominated Occupations
Teresa Cardador, Patrick Hill & Arghavan Salles
Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The challenges faced by women in male-dominated occupations are often attributed to the men in, and masculine cultures of, these occupations -- and sometimes to senior women in these occupations who may fail to give a “leg up” to the women coming up behind them. As such, prior research has largely focused on challenges that women experience from those of higher or equal status within the occupation and on the negative climate that surrounds women in these positions. We introduce a novel challenge, the status-leveling burden, which is the pressure put on women in male-dominated occupations from women in occupations lower in the institutional hierarchy to be their equal. Drawing on interviews with 45 surgeons, we present a model that unpacks this status-leveling burden. Our research makes novel contributions to the literatures on challenges to women in male-dominated occupations and on shared demography in cross-occupational collaboration, and it suggests new avenues for research at the intersection of gender and occupational status in the workplace.
A matter of time: Gender, time constraint, and risk taking among the chess elite
Maryam Dilmaghani
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using a sample of elite chess games, the present paper examines how time constraint affects risk taking. Under time constraint, the greatest average risk taking is observed when women play against men, compared with all other game compositions, inclusive of when men play against men or against women.
The Pandemic and Gender Inequality in Academia
Eunji Kim & Shawn Patterson
PS: Political Science & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Has the pandemic exacerbated gender inequality in academia? We provide real- time evidence by analyzing 1.8 million tweets from approximately 3,000 political scientists, leveraging their use of social media for career advancement. Using automated text analysis and difference-in-differences estimation, we find that although faculty members of both genders were affected by the pandemic, the shift to remote work caused women to tweet less often than their male colleagues about professional accomplishments. We argue that these effects are driven by the increased familial obligations placed on women, as demonstrated by the increase in family-related tweets and the more pronounced effects among junior academics. Our evidence demonstrating the gendered shift in professional visibility during the pandemic provides the opportunity for proactive efforts to address disparities that otherwise may take years to manifest.
Gender inequities in the online dissemination of scholars’ work
Orsolya Vásárhelyi et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 28 September 2021
Abstract:
Unbiased science dissemination has the potential to alleviate some of the known gender disparities in academia by exposing female scholars’ work to other scientists and the public. And yet, we lack comprehensive understanding of the relationship between gender and science dissemination online. Our large-scale analyses, encompassing half a million scholars, revealed that female scholars’ work is mentioned less frequently than male scholars’ work in all research areas. When exploring the characteristics associated with online success, we found that the impact of prior work, social capital, and gendered tie formation in coauthorship networks are linked with online success for men, but not for women—even in the areas with the highest female representation. These results suggest that while men’s scientific impact and collaboration networks are associated with higher visibility online, there are no universally identifiable facets associated with success for women. Our comprehensive empirical evidence indicates that the gender gap in online science dissemination is coupled with a lack of understanding the characteristics that are linked with female scholars’ success, which might hinder efforts to close the gender gap in visibility.
Why is Workplace Sexual Harassment Underreported? The Value of Outside Options Amid the Threat of Retaliation
Gordon Dahl & Matthew Knepper
NBER Working Paper, September 2021
Abstract:
Why is workplace sexual harassment chronically underreported? We hypothesize that employers coerce victims into silence through the threat of a retaliatory firing, and test this theory by estimating whether external shocks that reduce the value of a worker's outside options exacerbate underreporting. Under mild assumptions, a rise in the severity of formal complaints is indicative of increased underreporting. Combining this insight with an objective measure of the quality of charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), we perform two analyses. First, we assess whether workers report sexual harassment more selectively during recessions, when outside labor market options are limited. We estimate the fraction of sexual harassment charges deemed to have merit by the EEOC increases by 0.5-0.7% for each one percentage point increase in a state-industry's monthly unemployment rate. The effect is amplified in industries employing a larger fraction of men and in establishments with a higher share of male managers. Second, we test whether less generous UI benefits create economic incentives for victims of workplace sexual harassment to remain silent. We find the selectivity of sexual harassment charges increases by more than 30% in response to a 50% cut to North Carolina's Unemployment Insurance (UI) program following the Great Recession.
Does a report = support? A qualitative analysis of college sexual assault survivors’ Title IX Office knowledge, perceptions, and experiences
Kathryn Holland & Allison Cipriano
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Universities in the United States are required to remedy sexual assault under Title IX. Thus, college sexual assault survivors have the option to report to their university's Title IX Office as a mechanism for seeking sanctions and accommodations. The current study examined what survivors think about the Title IX Office, the possibility of seeking help there, and experiences with the reporting processes. Additionally, we examined the intersection between survivors’ gender and sexual identity in their perceptions and interactions. We conducted qualitative interviews with 40 survivors at a large Midwestern University and analyzed these data using content analysis and thematic analysis. The majority knew about the Title IX Office and its function, but most did not use it. Campus climate often fostered service barriers, including the minimization of sexual assault, fear of negative treatment, and social–emotional concerns. Survivors who reported rarely saw accountability for their perpetrators and frequently experienced negative treatment from investigators. There were substantial inconsistencies in reporting processes across survivors. There were few differences in knowledge and barriers across sexual and gender identities, but only cisgender women reported. Findings suggest the value in reducing barriers fostered by the campus climate and establishing mechanisms for Title IX Office oversight and accountability.
The Intangible Gender Gap: An Asset Channel of Inequality
Carlos Avenancio-León & Leslie Sheng Shen
Federal Reserve Working Paper, August 2021
Abstract:
We propose an "asset channel of inequality" that contributes to gender inequities. We establish that industries with low (high) gender pay gaps have high (low) shares of tangible assets. Because asset tangibility determines firms' ability to collateralize assets and borrow, credit conditions affect industries differently. We show that credit expansions further reduce the pay gap in low-pay-gap industries while leaving it unaffected in high-pay-gap industries, making low-pay-gap industries more appealing for women. Consequently, gender sorting across industries increases, which then cements gender roles and accentuates workplace gender bias. Ultimately, credit expansions help women "swim upstream" but also reinforce glass ceilings.
Student–Teacher Gender Matching and Academic Achievement
NaYoung Hwang & Brian Fitzpatrick
AERA Open, September 2021
Abstract:
Scholars have examined the effects of same-gender teachers on student achievement, but the findings are mixed. In this study, we use 7 years of administrative data from students in elementary and middle schools (i.e., Grades 3 through 8) in Indiana to test links between gender matching and student achievement. We find that female teachers are better at increasing both male and female students’ achievement than their male counterparts in elementary and middle schools. The positive effects of having female math teachers are particularly large for female students’ math achievement, but we do not find evidence for a positive gender matching effect in English language arts. In addition, contrary to popular speculation, boys do not exhibit higher academic achievement when they are assigned to male teachers. Our findings suggest that the effects of teacher gender on student learning vary by subject and gender, but the effect sizes are small.
Professors Who Signal a Fixed Mindset About Ability Undermine Women’s Performance in STEM
Elizabeth Canning et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two studies investigate how science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professors’ fixed mindsets -- the belief that intelligence is fixed and unchangeable -- may induce stereotype threat and undermine women’s performance. In an experiment (N = 217), we manipulated professors’ mindset beliefs (fixed vs. growth) within a course syllabus. While both men and women perceived the fixed mindset professor to endorse more gender stereotypes and anticipated feeling less belonging in the course, women reported these effects more than men. However, only for women did this threat undermine performance. In a 2-year longitudinal field study (884 students enrolled in 46 STEM courses), students who perceived their professor to endorse a fixed (vs. growth) mindset thought the professor would endorse more gender stereotypes and experienced less belonging in those courses. However, only women’s grades in those courses suffered as a result. Together, these studies demonstrate that professors’ fixed mindset beliefs may trigger stereotype threat among women in STEM courses.