Equalizing Opportunity
Does Masking MCAT Scores During Admissions Increase Equity?
Michael Arnold et al.
Academic Medicine, December 2023, Pages 1413-1419
Purpose: To improve admissions process equity, the Uniformed Services University masked Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores at or above the 51st percentile to admissions committee members. This policy was aimed at improving admissions rates for applicants in 2 priority groups: those from races and ethnicities underrepresented in medicine (URM) and those from lower socioeconomic status, represented by first-generation college (FGC) graduates.
Method: All applicants invited to interview were included: 1,624 applicants from admissions years 2014–2016 before MCAT score masking and 1,668 applicants from admissions years 2018–2020 during MCAT score masking. Logistic regression determined admissions likelihood before and during masking. Independent sample t tests compared average admissions committee scores for all applicants and for those in priority groups. Linear regression determined the weight of MCAT scores on admissions committee scores.
Results: Despite there being more priority group applicants during MCAT score masking, the admissions likelihood for an individual priority group applicant decreased during this period. URM applicants had an odds ratio of 0.513 for acceptance during MCAT score masking compared to before masking, and FGC applicants had an odds ratio of 0.695. Masking significantly reduced mean admissions committee scores, which decreased approximately twice as much for priority group applicants as for nonpriority group applicants (0.96 points vs 0.51 points). These score decreases were highest for priority group applicants with MCAT scores above the 67th percentile. Masking reduced the weight of MCAT scores; 10.9% of admissions committee score variance was explained by MCAT scores before masking and only 1.2% during masking.
Occupational Hazard? An Analysis of Birth Outcomes Among Physician Mothers
Anupam Jena, David Slusky & Lilly Springer
NBER Working Paper, December 2023
Abstract:
Training to become a physician involves long work hours that can be physically demanding, particularly for surgeons. Are birth outcomes of physician mothers affected as a result? Using Texas birth data from 2007-2014, we compared birth outcomes between physicians and another highly educated group, lawyers, and between surgeons and non-surgeon physicians. Further, using a difference-in-differences framework, we examine whether the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education 2011 duty hour reform, which lowered trainee work hours, impacted the birth outcomes of babies born to physicians compared with lawyers. We find that physicians have lower birth weights and shorter pregnancies than lawyers with the results driven by physicians in surgical specialties. However, the duty hour reform appears to not have impacted birth outcomes. Thus, we find that physicians tend to have worse birth outcomes than lawyers and, in this case, the work reform did little to address the difference.
Spillover Effects at School: How Black Teachers affect their White Peers’ Racial Competency
Seth Gershenson et al.
NBER Working Paper, November 2023
Abstract:
Do white teachers learn racial competency from their Black peers? We answer this question using a mixed-methods approach. Longitudinal administrative data from North Carolina show that having a Black same-grade peer significantly improves the achievement and reduces the suspension rates of white teachers’ Black students. Open-ended interviews of North Carolina public school teachers reaffirm these findings. Broadly, our findings suggest that the positive impact of Black teachers’ ability to successfully teach Black students is not limited to their direct interaction with Black students but is augmented by spillover effects on early-career white teachers, likely through peer learning.
The interplay of gender and perceived sexual orientation at the bargaining table: A social dominance and intersectionalist perspective
Sreedhari Desai & Brian Gunia
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, November 2023
Abstract:
Prior research suggests that female negotiators often obtain worse outcomes than male negotiators. The current research examines whether this pattern extends to the large subset of men and women who identify as gays and lesbians. In particular, we interweave scholarship on gender stereotypes with work on intersectionality and MOSAIC theory to develop a theoretical model that anticipates how male and female negotiators will be treated at the bargaining table based on whether they are perceived to be heterosexual or homosexual. This model predicts that homosexual women, like heterosexual men, will receive more beneficial negotiation offers and outcomes than heterosexual women and homosexual men. Additionally, it suggests that this will happen because people hold markedly different behavioral expectations for male and female heterosexual and homosexual negotiators. The results of five experimental and audit studies involving diverse samples of participants including Masters Students in the U.S. and India, individuals selling items on Craigslist, and street vendors in India provide robust support. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of considering gender and sexual orientation in tandem when studying negotiation.
Peers’ race in adolescence and voting behavior
Maria Polipciuc, Frank Cörvers & Raymond Montizaan
Economics of Education Review, December 2023
Abstract:
Using a representative longitudinal survey of U.S. teenagers, we investigate how peer racial composition in high school affects individual turnout of young adults. We exploit across-cohort, within-school differences in peer racial composition. One within-school standard deviation increase in the racial diversity index leads to a 2.3 percent increase in the probability to be registered to vote seven years later and to a 2.6 percent higher probability to vote six years later. These effects are likely due to positive interracial contact when socialization has long-lasting effects: higher racial diversity in school is linked to more interracial friendships in school and later on.
Brilliance Beliefs, Not Mindsets, Explain Inverse Gender Gaps in Psychology and Philosophy
Heather Maranges et al.
Sex Roles, December 2023, Pages 801–817
Abstract:
Understanding academic gender gaps is difficult because gender-imbalanced fields differ across many features, limiting researchers’ ability to systematically study candidate causes. In the present preregistered research, we isolate two potential explanations -- brilliance beliefs and fixed versus growth intelligence mindsets -- by comparing two fields that have inverse gender gaps and historic and topical overlap: philosophy and psychology. Many more men than women study philosophy and vice versa in psychology, with disparities emerging during undergraduate studies. No prior work has examined the contributions of both self-perceptions of brilliance and fixed versus growth mindsets on choice of major among undergraduate students. We assessed field-specific brilliance beliefs, brilliance beliefs about self, and mindsets, cross-sectionally in 467 undergraduates enrolled in philosophy and psychology classes at universities in the United States and Canada via both in-person and online questionnaires. We found support for the brilliance beliefs about the self, but not mindset, explanation. Brilliance beliefs about oneself predicted women’s but not men’s choice of major. Women who believed they were less brilliant were more likely to study psychology (perceived to require low brilliance) over philosophy (perceived to require high brilliance). Findings further indicated that fixed versus growth mindsets did not differ by gender and were not associated with major. Together, these results suggest that internalized essentialist beliefs about the gendered nature of brilliance are uniquely important to understanding why men and women pursue training in different academic fields.
Do Virtual Environments Close the Gender Gap in Participation in Question-and-Answer Sessions at Academic Conferences? In Search of Moderation by Conference Format
Shoshana Jarvis et al.
Sex Roles, December 2023, Pages 818–833
Abstract:
Consistent with power and status differences between men and women in society, men tend to participate more than women do in question-and-answer (Q&A) sessions at in-person academic conferences. This gap in participation in scientific discourse may perpetuate the status quo. The current research examines whether this gender gap in participation in Q&A sessions extends to virtual conferences, which have become more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to shifts in conference formats to enable asynchronous, anonymous, and/or simultaneous participation, we examined whether virtual conferences are more inclusive, and mitigate the gender gap in Q&A participation. Across four virtual conferences that varied in gender representation and Q&A structured format, men continued to take a disproportionate amount of time and space in Q&A sessions. Disproportionate participation did not significantly vary between in-person and virtual formats and did not systematically vary by how the Q&A session was organized. In an all-chat virtual conference, gender differences in volubility were attenuated among higher status academics. Gendered participation and volubility were also impacted by which sub-discipline the presentation was in. Discussion considers the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for understanding the persistence of gender inequality in science. We encourage future research that attends to the cultural factors that promote or mitigate gender disparities in participation.
Minimum Wages and Racial Discrimination in Hiring: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Alec Brandon et al.
University of Chicago Working Paper, November 2023
Abstract:
When minimum wages increase, employers may respond to the regulatory burdens by substituting away from disadvantaged workers. We test this hypothesis using a correspondence study with 35,000 applications around ex-ante uncertain minimum wage increases in three U.S. states. Before the increases, applicants with distinctively Black names were 19 percent less likely to receive a callback than equivalent applicants with distinctively white names. Announcements of minimum wage hikes substantially reduce callbacks for all applicants but shrink the racial callback gap by 80 percent. Racial inequality decreases because firms disproportionately reduce callbacks to lower-quality white applicants who benefited from discrimination under lower minimum wages.
The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected But Not Accounted For
Christine Exley & Kirby Nielsen
American Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate how the gender gap in confidence affects the views that evaluators (e.g., employers) hold about men and women. We find that the confidence gap is contagious, causing evaluators to form overly pessimistic beliefs about women. This result arises even though the confidence gap is expected and even though the confidence gap shouldn't be contagious if evaluators are Bayesian. Only an intervention that facilitates Bayesian updating proves (somewhat) effective. Additional results highlight how similar findings follow even when there is no room for discriminatory motives or differences in priors because evaluators are asked about arbitrary, rather than gender-specific, groups.
Who Benefits from Work-Life Programs? Lessons in Gender and Race from OPM's Federal Work-Life Survey
Shilpa Viswanath, Jung Ah. (Claire) Yun & Lauren Bock Mullins
Public Administration Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Engaging the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's inaugural Federal Work-life Survey (2017), this study deconstructs the gender and race differences in employee satisfaction with federal work-life programs. We examine whether women of color employees in particular stand to benefit differently from the federal work-life programs in comparison to their male and white colleagues. Notably, this study operationalizes the federal employee's work-life interference and dependent care responsibilities to determine gender and race-related differences in employee satisfaction with federal work-life programs. Study results indicate that federal employees belonging to historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups are satisfied to a lesser extent with partaking in federal work-life programs than their white counterparts.