Not throwing away my shot
Gender differences in entrepreneurial propensity: Evidence from matrilineal and patriarchal societies
Abu Zafar Shahriar
Journal of Business Venturing, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine whether men and women in patriarchal and matrilineal societies differ in their propensity to engage in entrepreneurship. We conduct two studies. Study 1 involves face-to-face interviews to identify individuals who are in the process of starting a new business. We find that men in patriarchal societies are more likely than women to initiate action to start a new business. This result, however, is reversed in matrilineal societies, where women are more likely than men to do so. The results of causal mediation tests suggest that entrepreneurial self-efficacy and fear of business failure explain the gender gap in both societies. Study 2 involves a controlled experiment in the lab that captures individuals' willingness to invest in the creation of a new venture. The results of the experiments are consistent with the survey data: men in patriarchal societies and women in matrilineal societies invest more in new venture creation in a simulated environment. We therefore rule out the simplistic view that women are inherently less likely to enter into entrepreneurship due to innate differences across genders. Rather, gender differences in entrepreneurial propensity are outcome of socialization.
A Second Look at the Process of Occupational Feminization and Pay Reduction in Occupations
Hadas Mandel
Demography, April 2018, Pages 669–690
Abstract:
Using the IPUMS-USA data for the years 1960–2015, this study examines trends in the effect of occupational feminization on occupational pay in the U.S. labor market and explores some of the mechanisms underlying these trends. The findings show that the (negative) association between occupational feminization and occupational pay level has declined, becoming insignificent in 2015. This trend, however, is reversed after education is controlled for at the individual as well as the occupational level. The two opposite trends are discussed in light of the twofold effect of education: (1) the entry of women into occupations requiring high education, and (2) the growing returns to education and to occupations with higher educational requirements. These two processes have concealed the deterioration in occupational pay following feminization. The findings underscore the significance of structural forms of gender inequality in general, and occupational devaluation in particular.
Job Characteristics and Labor Market Discrimination in Promotions
Jed DeVaro, Suman Ghosh & Cindy Zoghi
Industrial Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
We extend promotion signaling theory to generate new testable implications concerning racial differences in promotions. In our model, promotions signal worker ability. When tasks differ substantially across job levels, the opportunity cost of not promoting qualified non‐whites/non‐Asians is large, so employers are less likely to inefficiently withhold their promotions. Thus, given prepromotion performance, the extent to which non‐whites/non‐Asians have lower promotion probabilities decreases when tasks vary more across levels. Racial differences in wage increases at promotion diminish when tasks vary more across levels. Evidence from a single firm's personnel records supports the model's predictions concerning promotion probabilities.
What Levels of Racial Diversity Can Be Achieved with Socioeconomic‐Based Affirmative Action? Evidence from a Simulation Model
Sean Reardon et al.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper investigates to what extent socioeconomic status (SES)‐based affirmative action in college admissions can produce racial diversity. Using simulation models, we investigate the racial and socioeconomic distribution of students among colleges under the use of race‐ or SES‐based affirmative action policies, or targeted, race‐based recruitment policies. We find, first, that neither SES‐based affirmative action nor race‐targeted recruiting on their own produce levels of racial diversity achieved by race‐based affirmative action. However, the two policies in combination, although likely expensive, may yield racial diversity comparable to race‐based affirmative action. Second, the use of affirmative action policies by some colleges reduces the diversity of similar‐quality colleges without such policies. Third, the combination of SES‐based affirmative action and race recruiting results in fewer academically‐overmatched Black and Hispanic students than under race‐based affirmative action, but the schools that use both also see a reduction in the academic achievement of enrolled students.
Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation
John-Paul Ferguson & Rembrand Koning
American Sociological Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Racial segregation between U.S. workplaces is greater today than it was a generation ago. This increase happened alongside declines in within-establishment occupational segregation, on which most prior research has focused. We examine more than 40 years of longitudinal data on the racial employment composition of every large private-sector workplace in the United States to calculate between- and within-establishment trends in racial employment segregation over time. We demonstrate that the return of racial establishment segregation owes little to within-establishment processes, but rather stems from differences in the turnover rates of more and less homogeneous workplaces. Present research on employment segregation focuses mainly on within-firm processes. By doing so, scholars may be overstating the country’s progress on employment integration and ignoring other avenues of intervention that may give greater leverage for further integrating firms.
A woman's place is in the... startup! Crowdfunder judgments, implicit bias, and the stereotype content model
Michael Johnson, Regan Stevenson & Chaim Letwin
Journal of Business Venturing, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine investor stereotypes and implicit bias in crowdfunding decisions. Prior research in formal venture capital settings demonstrates that investors tend to have a funding bias against women. However, in crowdfunding – wherein a ‘crowd’ of amateur investors make relatively small investments in new companies – our empirical observations reveal a funding advantage for women. We explain the causal mechanism underlying this counterintuitive finding by drawing upon stereotype content theory and testing a dual path moderated-mediation model. Based on archival data and a follow-up experiment, our findings suggest common gender biases held by amateur investors function to increase female stereotype perceptions in the form of trustworthiness judgments, which subsequently increases investors' willingness to invest in early-stage women-led ventures. We discuss our results with specific attention to how our findings extend the entrepreneurship funding literature as well as the gender dynamics literature in entrepreneurship and organization research more broadly.
Revisiting the Gender Gap in CEO Compensation: Replication and Extension of Hill, Upadhyay, and Beekun (2015)'s Work on CEO Gender Pay Gap
Vishal Gupta, Sandra Mortal & Xiaohu Guo
Strategic Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
The increasing number of women chief executives motivates considerable interest in examining possible gender differences in CEO compensation. Recently, Hill, Upadhyay and Beekun (2015) reported that female CEOs receive greater compensation than male CEOs, which runs counter to common wisdom that the gender pay gap in the labor market favors men over women. With the goal of contributing to cumulative knowledge development in this area, we seek to reexamine Hill et al’s finding about gender differences in CEO compensation by extending the analyses further in time, using a larger sample of firms and more rigorous empirical analyses. Our findings, which are robust to different statistical procedures and econometric specifications, do not reveal reliable evidence for differences in compensation paid to male and female CEOs.
How far can the apple fall? Differences in teacher perceptions of minority and immigrant parents and their impact on academic outcomes
Phoebe Ho & Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
While a large body of research has focused on increasing parental involvement in schools, less work has considered teacher perceptions of parental involvement. Teacher perceptions of parents are important because they influence teacher practices and relationships with students, with ensuing consequences for student outcomes. Prior research suggests that teacher perceptions of parents vary by children's family background, but empirical work comparing teacher perceptions of parental involvement across groups and the impact of such perceptions on different student outcomes is lacking. Using nationally representative data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, we find that even after taking into account parents' self-reported involvement in their adolescent children's education, teachers are less likely to perceive that minority immigrant parents are as involved as native-born White parents. Patterns also differ for teachers of English and teachers of math in ways that are consistent with racial and ethnic stereotypes about academic ability. Further, teacher perceptions of parental involvement matter for student GPAs and teacher recommendations.
Gender disparity in angel financing
Sharon Poczter & Melanie Shapsis
Small Business Economics, June 2018, Pages 31–55
Abstract:
This study uses unique hand-collected data from a televised entrepreneurial pitch competition to examine gender differences in obtaining angel financing. Results indicate that while the yield rates between male and female teams do not differ, a gender disparity in the amount of angel funding does in fact exist. Female teams receive less capital and provide more equity relative to their male counterparts, even when controlling for typical determinants of investment, such as industry and prior company success. Further, we find that female teams receive investments with lower valuations than their male counterparts largely because they initially offer higher equity stakes for less capital. Thus, this suggests that limitations to angel financing of female entrepreneurial ventures may be partly self-imposed.
The More You Know: Information Effects on Job Application Rates in a Large Field Experiment
Laura Gee
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper presents the results from a 2.3-million-person field experiment that varies whether or not a job seeker sees the number of applicants for a job posting on a large job-posting website, LinkedIn. This intervention increases the likelihood that a person will finish an application by 3.5%. Women have a larger increase in their likelihood of finishing an application than men. Overall, adding this information to a job posting may offer a light-touch way to both increase application rates and alter the diversity of the applicant pool.
The gender gap in early career transitions in the life sciences
Marc Lerchenmueller & Olav Sorenson
Research Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examined the extent to which and why early career transitions have led to women being underrepresented among faculty in the life sciences. We followed the careers of 6,336 scientists from the post-doctoral fellowship stage to becoming a principal investigator (PI) – a critical transition in the academic life sciences. Using a unique dataset that connects individuals’ National Institutes of Health funding histories to their publication records, we found that a large portion of the overall gender gap in the life sciences emerges at this transition. Women become PIs at a 20% lower rate than men. Differences in “productivity” (publication records) can explain about 60% of this differential. The remaining portion appears to stem from gender differences in the returns to similar publication records, with women receiving less credit for their citations.
The impact of an “aha” moment on gender biases: Limited evidence for the efficacy of a game intervention that challenges gender assumptions
Gili Freedman et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In two studies, the present research tested whether a paper-based game intervention that guides participants into understanding and questioning their assumptions about gender can decrease biases. Participants in Study 1 (N = 143 college students) and Study 2 (N = 341 high school students) played a game in which they either had to realize that a scientist character was a woman (Intervention condition) or a professor (Control condition) to solve the mystery. Across both studies, in a game with a storyline that included both male and female scientists, the vast majority of students who used gendered pronouns assumed that non-gendered scientist characters were men. In Study 1, playing the Intervention version of the game had no effect on college students' explicit or implicit attitudes toward women in science. In Study 2, there was a positive effect of the Intervention condition on implicit attitudes: participants in the Intervention condition were less likely to describe a female professor as a man than were participants in the Control condition. However, there was a negative effect of the Intervention condition on explicit attitudes toward women in science. Taken together, the present research points to the continued need for research on raising awareness of bias and developing interventions that can decrease biases while avoiding defensiveness.
Reducing negative affect and increasing rapport improve interracial mentorship outcomes
Jordan Leitner et al.
PLoS ONE, April 2018
Abstract:
Research suggests that interracial mentoring relationships are strained by negative affect and low rapport. As such, it stands to reason that strategies that decrease negative affect and increase rapport should improve these relationships. However, previous research has not tested this possibility. In video-chats (Studies 1 and 2) and face-to-face meetings (Study 3), we manipulated the degree of mutual self-disclosure between mentees and mentors, a strategy that has been shown to reduce negative affect and increase rapport. We then measured negative affect and rapport as mediators, and mentee performance (quality of speech delivered; Studies 1 and 3) and mentor performance (warmth and helpfulness; Studies 2 and 3) as key outcomes. Results revealed that increased self-disclosure decreased negative affect and increased rapport for both mentees and mentors. Among mentees, decreased negative affect predicted better performance (Studies 1 and 3). Among mentors, increased rapport predicted warmer feedback (Studies 2 and 3). These effects remained significant when we meta-analyzed data across studies (Study 4), and also revealed the relationship of rapport to more helpful feedback. Findings suggest that affect and rapport are key features in facilitating positive outcomes in interracial mentoring relationships.
Maturity and minorities: The impact of redshirting on achievement gaps
Matthew Lenard & Pablo Peña
Education Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
There are sizable and pervasive academic achievement gaps between minority and non-minority students in the United States. Non-minority students – particularly boys – are more likely to enroll in school one year after they become eligible, a practice known as ‘redshirting.’ Consequently, non-minority students are on average more mature than minority students when they take standardized tests. Many studies have documented that differences in maturity at the moment of testing translate into large differences in test scores. Thus, differences in redshirting behavior across minority and non-minority students may be a contributing factor to achievement gaps. This study analyzes the effect of redshirting on achievement gaps using a reform in North Carolina that shifted the cutoff date for school eligibility in 2009 from October 16 to August 31. We use the reform to create an instrumental variable for redshirting behavior. Using data for eight cohorts of 3rd graders in the Wake County Public School System and a difference-in-differences approach, we estimate that redshirting increases the achievement gap by 28%–30% among boys born close to the cutoff date for school eligibility, and 3%–4% among all boys. For girls, the estimates are 8%–11% for those born close to the cutoff and 1% overall, but these estimates lack statistical significance. We discuss some policy implications of shifting the cutoff date for school eligibility – 14 states have done since 2000 – and growing redshirting rates.