Opportunity on Trial
The Gender Pay Gap and High-Achieving Women in the Legal Profession
Milan Markovic & Gabriele Plickert
Law & Social Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although women have made significant strides in the legal profession, female attorneys continue to earn far less than male attorneys. Relying on survey data from a large sample of full-time attorneys in Texas, we find a gender pay gap of thirty-five thousand dollars at the median that cannot be explained by differences in human capital or occupational segregation. We also provide evidence that the legal market especially disadvantages women who excel in law school. Whereas high academic achievement boosts male lawyers’ incomes substantially, it does not have the same effect on female lawyers’ incomes. High-achieving female lawyers earn less than high-achieving male lawyers across practice settings and earn less than their lower-achieving male counterparts in private practice. We conclude that discrimination in the legal profession operates partly by devaluing female attorneys’ human capital, such that sterling academic credentials and other traits that are valued in men are far less valued in women.
Women and Minority Film Directors in Hollywood: Performance Implications of Product Development and Distribution Biases
Ekaterina Karniouchina et al.
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
With gender and race representation issues in Hollywood coming under intense scrutiny, the movie industry is wrestling with gender- and race-related imbalances in its power structure. One area of concern is the relatively small proportion of women and people of color retained as film directors by major motion picture studios, coupled with little evidence of improvement in representation among widely-released US movies over time. The movie industry offers a unique opportunity to examine the factors that explain gender- and race-related performance disparities, including project assignment and distribution biases. In this study, the authors estimate a two-stage model that accounts for the effects of selection in matching director gender and race to (1) projects of varying potential, (2) production budgets, and (3) the number of screens secured during distribution. They further address endogeneity by using instrumental variables for revenue, budget, screens, and audience reviews. While model-free comparisons suggest that movies directed by women and minorities generate significantly lower revenue, once endogeneity and selection are properly specified, performance differences disappear. Instead, the results show evidence of substantial biases favoring male, non-minority directors in all three areas: project assignment, budgeting, and distribution. These biases are stronger for movies with female and minority lead actors but weaker for directors with high clout in the industry and international directors. A subsequent matched sample analysis illustrates how women directors produce similar outcomes with lower budgets, and minority directors produce outsized revenues with equivalent budgets, in both cases leading to marginally higher returns.
Gender Differences in Response to Competitive Organization? Differences Across Fields from a Product Development Platform Field Experiment
Kevin Boudreau & Nilam Kaushik
NBER Working Paper, May 2022
Abstract:
Prior research, primarily based on lab experiments, suggests that females might be more averse to competition than males and could be more inclined towards collaboration, instead. Were these findings to generalize to adults across the workforce, there could be profound implications for organizational design and personnel management. We report on a field experiment in which 97,678 adults from a wide range of fields and ages were invited to join a product development opportunity. Individuals were randomly assigned to treatments framing the opportunity as either involving competitive or collaborative interactions with other participants. Among those outside of science, technology, engineering, and math fields (STEM), we find significant gender differences in willingness to participate under competition. Among those in STEM fields, we detect no statistical gender differences. These results and broader patterns documented in the study are consistent with significant heterogeneity in competitiveness across both men and women, with field and career sorting resulting in differences (in gender differences) across fields.
The Future of Roe and the Gender Pay Gap: An Empirical Assessment
Itay Ravid & Jonathan Zandberg
Indiana Law Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court is currently considering a Mississippi law that prohibits nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, in direct contradiction to the holding in Roe v. Wade. Among the many arguments raised in Dobbs in an attempt to overturn Roe, the State of Mississippi argues that due to “the march of progress” in women’s role in society, abortion rights are no longer necessary for women to participate equally in economic life. It has also been argued that there is no empirical support to the causal relationship between abortion rights and women’s economic success in society. This Article is the first to empirically examine both these arguments, and it provides compelling evidence to reject each of them. To do so, we adopt a novel methodology that utilizes the enforcement of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP Laws) as proxies for abortion restrictions. We study the effects of over forty years of legislation on the participation of American women in the labor market. The results are striking. Our findings strongly and consistently show that the introduction of TRAP laws has widened the gender pay gap between women at childbearing age and the rest of the population. We also reveal the role of TRAP laws in pushing these women out of the labor force – or at least into choosing lower-paying jobs – as possible explanations for this gap. Ultimately, these findings foreshadow the future landscape of gender inequality in the United States if Roe is overturned.
Gendered Information in Resumes and Hiring Bias: A Predictive Modeling Approach
Prasanna Parasurama, João Sedoc & Anindya Ghose
NYU Working Paper, April 2022
Abstract:
We study if men and women with similar job-relevant characteristics write their resumes differently, and if so, how this difference affects hiring outcomes using a predictive modeling approach. Using a matched sample set of resumes (348k resumes), we train a state-of-the-art deep learning model to quantify the extent of gendered information in resumes, and inductively learn differences between male and female resumes with similar job-relevant characteristics. We then use this model to develop a measure of gender-incongruence – i.e. a measure of how much the self-presented gender characteristics in the resume deviate from the self-reported gender of the candidate. Using this measure along with historical hiring data from technology firms, we test whether applicants whose resume gender characteristics deviate from their actual gender (i.e. male resumes with feminine characteristics, female resumes with masculine characteristics) are less likely to receive a callback. We find three main results: (1) there is a significant amount of gendered information in resumes – even among anonymized applicants with similar job-relevant characteristics, our model can learn to distinguish between genders with a high degree of accuracy (AUC=0.81). (2) This gendered information plays a role in hiring bias – women who exhibit masculine characteristics in the resume are less likely to receive a callback after controlling for job-relevant characteristics. (3) Extant dictionary-based methods underestimate this effect. We discuss these findings in light of algorithmic and human bias in hiring.
Bias in online classes: Evidence from a field experiment
Rachel Baker et al.
Economics of Education Review, June 2022
Abstract:
Asynchronous, online interactions are increasingly common, particularly in education, but relatively little is known about the influence of social identity in these environments. We test for the presence of race/place-of-origin and gender biases among students and instructors in asynchronous online post-secondary classes by measuring responses to discussion comments posted in the discussion forums of 124 different massive open online courses (MOOCs). Each comment was randomly assigned a student name connoting a specific race/place of origin and gender. We find evidence that assumed identities influenced the likelihood of both instructor and peer responses. The comparative effects by identity indicate that instructor responses consistently privileged White males who were, on average, 94% more likely to receive a response than other students. We also find that White female students were particularly likely to receive a peer response. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding social-identity dynamics in classrooms and the design of online learning environments.
Not all inequalities are created equal: Inequality framing and privilege threat for advantaged groups
Tessa Dover
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, April 2022, Pages 746-767
Abstract:
This paper investigates when and why members of privileged groups choose to describe inequality using disadvantage frames (e.g., “women have lower wages than men”) or advantage frames (e.g., “men have higher wages than women”). Four studies (N = 1,251) test the hypothesis that advantage frames are more threatening than disadvantage frames for privileged groups, and that privileged groups may strategically avoid using advantage frames when discussing illegitimate — but not legitimate — inequality. In Study 1, members of a privileged group (White Americans) exhibited more behavioral and cardiovascular indicators of threat when reading about, reflecting on, and discussing racial inequality framed as White advantage versus Black disadvantage. In Studies 2–4, members of privileged groups (but not underprivileged groups) used advantage frames less often when describing illegitimate inequality than when describing legitimate inequality. These studies suggest that subtle linguistic changes in descriptions of inequalities can threaten privileged groups, and that privileged groups may adjust their descriptions of inequality depending on its legitimacy.
Can the Political Ambition of Young Women Be Increased? Evidence from U.S. High School Students
Joshua Kalla & Ethan Porter
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Spring 2022, Pages 259-281
Abstract:
The under-representation of women in American politics can likely be explained, at least in part, by women's comparatively lower levels of political ambition. We analyze a co-ed, religious program for high school students in which participants lobby their Members of Congress and receive political skills training. By leveraging longitudinal survey data about the participants and a difference-in-differences design, we find that the program successfully increased the political ambition of its female participants. To the best of our knowledge, we offer the first quasi-experimental evidence demonstrating a possible means of increasing the political ambition of high school-aged American women. Our results demonstrate that female political ambition can be increased without relying on programs that explicitly focus on gender and ambition.
Is Femvertising the New Greenwashing? Examining Corporate Commitment to Gender Equality
Yvette Sterbenk et al.
Journal of Business Ethics, May 2022, Pages 491–505
Abstract:
This study examined the potential for a new area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) washing: gender equality. Companies are increasingly recognized for advertisements promoting gender equality, termed “femvertisements.” However, it is unclear whether companies that win femvertising awards actually support women with an institutionalized approach to gender equality. A quantitative content analysis was performed assessing company leadership team listings, annual reports, CSR reports, and CSR websites of 61 US-based companies (31 award winners and 30 non-winning competitors) to compare the prevalence of internal and external gender-equality CSR activities of companies that have (versus have not) won femvertising awards. When controlling for number of employees and annual revenue, award-winning companies committed to more internal efforts that support women than non-award-winning companies. However, no significant differences were found in the number of external efforts or representation in female leadership between companies with and without award-winning femvertisements. Overall, a majority of award-winning companies (81%) engaged in less than ten of the possible 23 gender-equality CSR activities, suggesting these companies’ female empowerment commercials were often not in line with their broader CSR activities. While more research is needed in this area, we propose the term “fempower-washing” to describe CSR-washing in the context of gender equality.
Equal time for equal crime? Racial bias in school discipline
Ying Shi & Maria Zhu
Economics of Education Review, June 2022
Abstract:
Well-documented racial disparities in rates of exclusionary discipline may arise from differences in unobservable student behavior or from bias, in which treatment for the same behavior varies by student race or ethnicity. We provide evidence for the presence of bias in school discipline decisions using statewide administrative data that contain rich details on individual disciplinary infractions. Two complementary empirical strategies find racial differences suggestive of bias in suspension outcomes. The first uses within-incident variation in disciplinary outcomes across White, Black, and Hispanic students. The second employs individual fixed effects to examine how consequences vary for students across incidents based on the race of the other student involved in the incident. Both approaches find that Black students face higher suspension probabilities and longer suspensions than White students and are suspended for longer than Hispanic students. There is no evidence of Hispanic-White disparities. The similarity of findings across approaches and the ability of individual fixed effect models to account for unobserved characteristics common across disciplinary incidents provide support that remaining racial disparities are unlikely to be driven by differences in behavior.
Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in the Relationship Between Children’s Early Literacy Skills and Third-Grade Outcomes: Lessons From a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment
Walter Herring et al.
Educational Researcher, forthcoming
Abstract:
Federal accountability policy mandates that states administer standardized tests beginning in third grade. In turn, third-grade test scores are often viewed as a key indicator in policy and practice. Yet literacy struggles begin well before third grade, as do racial and socioeconomic disparities in children’s literacy skills. Kindergarten readiness assessments provide a unique opportunity to better understand the emergence of literacy disparities. We use unique kindergarten literacy data from nearly every school division in Virginia to document the relationship between children’s early literacy skills and their later reading proficiency. When comparing children with similar literacy skills at kindergarten entry, we find significant racial and socioeconomic differences in the likelihood that a child will be proficient on their third-grade reading assessment.
Backlash against the #MeToo movement: How women’s voice causes men to feel victimized
Jaclyn Lisnek et al.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, April 2022, Pages 682-702
Abstract:
Three studies examined whether perceived increase in women’s “voice” (i.e., being heard and taken seriously about sexual assault) contributes to perceptions of bias against men. In Study 1, both men and women who perceived women to have a greater voice related to sexual assault, perceived greater victimization of men. This relationship was stronger for relatively conservative participants. In Study 2, relatively conservative (but not relatively liberal) participants who read about #MeToo perceived greater men’s victimization than those in the control condition. Study 3 examined responses to perceiving that men are victimized by #MeToo. For relatively conservative (but not liberal) men, perceptions of men’s victimhood led to less willingness to work alone with a woman and less willingness to combat sexual assault (relative to a control condition). Thus, while the #MeToo movement brings awareness of issues of sexual assault, it also generates a backlash among the more conservative, and may accentuate gender disparities.