One giant leap for womankind
Gender Segregation in Occupations: The Role of Tipping and Social Interactions
Jessica Pan
Journal of Labor Economics, April 2015, Pages 365-408
Abstract:
This paper documents that the dynamics of occupational segregation are highly nonlinear and exhibit tipping patterns. Occupations experience discontinuous declines in net male employment growth at tipping points ranging from 25% to 45% (from 13% to 30%) female in white-collar (blue-collar) occupations from 1940 to 1990. These patterns appear consistent with a Schelling (1971) social interaction model where tipping results from male preferences toward the fraction female in their occupation. Supporting the model’s predictions, evidence from the General Social Survey indicates that tipping points are lower in regions where males hold more sexist attitudes toward the appropriate role of women.
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Affirmative Action and Stereotype Threat
Anat Bracha, Alma Cohen & Lynn Conell-Price
Harvard Working Paper, January 2015
Abstract:
This paper provides experimental evidence on the effect of affirmative action (AA). In particular, we investigate whether affirmative action has a ”stereotype threat effect” – that is, whether AA cues a negative stereotype that leads individuals to conform to the stereotype and adversely affects their performance. Stereotype threat has been shown in the literature to be potentially significant for individuals who identify strongly with the domain of the stereotype and who engage in complex stereotype-relevant tasks. We therefore explore this question in the context of gender-based AA for a complex math task. In this context, the stereotype is most relevant for women with high math ability, and the stereotype threat effects can be expected to work in the opposite direction to AA’s competition effect that encourages women to compete. We find that, consistent with the presence of a stereotype threat, AA has an overall negative effect on the performance of high-ability women performing complex math tasks.
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Unanticipated Effects of California's Paid Family Leave Program
Tirthatanmoy Das & Solomon Polachek
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the effect of California paid family leave (CPFL) on young women's labor force participation and unemployment, relative to men and older women. CPFL enables workers to take at most 6 weeks of paid leave over a 12-month period in order to bond with new born or adopted children, or to care for sick family members or ailing parents. The policy benefits women, especially young women, as they are more prone to take such a leave. However, the effect of the policy on overall labor market outcomes is less clear. We apply difference-in-difference techniques to identify the effects of the CPFL legislation on young women's labor force participation and unemployment. We find that the labor force participation rate, the unemployment rate, and the duration of unemployment among young women rose in California compared to men (particularly young men) and older women in California, and to other young women, men, and older women in states that did not adopt PFL. The latter two findings regarding higher young women's unemployment and unemployment duration are unanticipated effects of the CPFL program. We utilize robustness checks as well as unique placebo tests to validate these results.
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Do Men and Women Respond Differently to Competition? Evidence from a Major Education Reform
Louis-Philippe Morin
Journal of Labor Economics, April 2015, Pages 443-491
Abstract:
This paper provides new evidence of gender differences in response to increased competition, focusing on important life tasks performed in a regular social environment. The analysis takes advantage of a major education reform in Ontario that exogenously increased competition for university grades. Comparing students prereform and postreform using rich administrative data, I find that male average grades and the proportion of male students graduating “on time” increased relative to females. Further, the evidence indicates that these changes were due to increased relative effort rather than self-selection. The findings have implications for the delivery of education and incentive provision more generally.
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Gender and Dynamic Agency: Theory and Evidence on the Compensation of Top Executives
Stefania Albanesi, Claudia Olivetti & Maria Jose Prados
University of Southern California Working Paper, March 2015
Abstract:
We document three new facts about gender differences in executive compensation. First, female executives receive lower share of incentive pay in total compensation relative to males. This difference accounts for 93% of the gender gap in total pay. Second, the compensation of female executives displays lower pay-performance sensitivity. A $1 million dollar increase in firm value generates a $17,150 increase in firm specific wealth for male executives and a $1,670 increase for females. Third, female executives are more exposed to bad firm performance and less exposed to good firm performance relative to male executives. We find no link between firm performance and the gender of top executives. We discuss evidence on differences in preferences and the cost of managerial effort by gender and examine the resulting predictions for the structure of compensation. We consider two paradigms for the pay-setting process, the efficient contracting model and the “managerial power” or skimming view. The efficient contracting model can explain the first two facts. Only the skimming view is consistent with the third fact. This suggests that the gender differentials in executive compensation may be inefficient.
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Ioana Latu, Marianne Schmid Mast & Tracie Stewart
Psychology of Women Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although explicit stereotypes of women in the workplace have become increasingly positive, negative stereotypes persist at an implicit level, with women being more likely associated with incompetent — and men with competent — managerial traits. Drawing upon work on self-fulfilling prophecies and interracial interactions, we investigated whether and how implicit and explicit gender stereotypes held by both male interviewers and female applicants predicted women’s interview outcomes. Thirty male interviewers conducted mock job interviews with 30 female applicants. Before the interview, we measured interviewers’ and applicants’ implicit and explicit gender stereotypes. The interviewers’ and applicants’ implicit stereotypes independently predicted external evaluations of the performance of female applicants. Whereas female applicants’ higher implicit stereotypes directly predicted lower performance, male interviewers’ implicit stereotypes indirectly impaired female applicants’ performance through lower evaluations by the interviewer and lower self-evaluations by the applicant. Moreover, having an interviewer who was at the same time high in implicit and low in explicit stereotypes predicted the lowest performance of female applicants. Our findings highlight the importance of taking into account both implicit and explicit gender stereotypes in mixed-gender interactions and point to ways to reduce the negative effects of gender stereotypes in job interviews.
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Mark Lutter
American Sociological Review, April 2015, Pages 329-358
Abstract:
That social capital matters is an established fact in the social sciences. Less clear, however, is how different forms of social capital affect gender disadvantages in career advancement. Focusing on a project-based type of labor market, namely the U.S. film industry, this study argues that women suffer a “closure penalty” and face severe career disadvantages when collaborating in cohesive teams. At the same time, gender disadvantages are reduced for women who build social capital in open networks with higher degrees of diversity and information flow. Using large-scale longitudinal data on career profiles of about one million performances by 97,657 film actors in 369,099 film productions between the years 1929 and 2010, I analyze career survival models and interaction effects between gender and different measures of social capital and information openness. Findings reveal that female actors have a higher risk of career failure than do their male colleagues when affiliated in cohesive networks, but women have better survival chances when embedded in open, diverse structures. This study contributes to the understanding of how and what type of social capital can be either a beneficial resource for otherwise disadvantaged groups or a constraining mechanism that intensifies gender differences in career advancement.
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When Judging Is Power: A Gender Perspective on the French and American Judiciaries
Adélaïde Remiche
Journal of Law and Courts, Spring 2015, Pages 95-114
Abstract:
This article examines the feminization of the judiciary in France and in the United States through the prism of the “imagined judge,” that is, the judge as he or she is represented in a specific legal culture. The French imagined judge is a knowledgeable automaton mechanically applying the law entirely created by the parliament, while his or her American counterpart is a decision maker well equipped to solve social problems. Interpreting the gender composition of the judiciary through the intellectual device of the imagined judge leads to a crucial observation: there is a correlation between the conceptualization of the imagined judge as a being exercising power, as in the United States, and the continued underrepresentation of women on the bench. From this observation comes an important hypothesis: the conceptualization of judging as an act of power works to keep women off the bench.
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Estimating Gender Differences in Access to Jobs
Laurent Gobillon, Dominique Meurs & Sébastien Roux
Journal of Labor Economics, April 2015, Pages 317-363
Abstract:
This paper proposes a new measure of gender differences in access to jobs based on a job assignment model. This measure is the probability ratio of getting a job for a female and a male at each rank of the wage ladder. We derive a nonparametric estimator of this access measure and estimate it for French full-time executives aged 40–45 in the private sector. Our results show that the gender difference in the probability of getting a job increases along the wage ladder from 9% to 50%. Females thus have a significantly lower access to high-paid jobs than to low-paid jobs.
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Gender Congruence and Work Effort in Manager–Employee Relationships
John Marvel
Public Administration Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article uses data on public school teachers and principals to examine whether teachers who share the gender of their principal work more overtime hours than teachers who do not. Findings show that gender congruence is associated with overtime hours for female teachers but not for male teachers. This result holds between schools and within schools: female teachers with female principals work more overtime hours than female teachers with male principals, and female teachers with female principals work more overtime hours than male teachers who work in the same school, for the same female principal. In light of multiple competing explanations for this finding, the author explores why gender congruence matters for female teachers but not for male teachers.
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Geography and Gender: Variation in the Gender Earnings Ratio Across U.S. States
Saul Hoffman
Social Science Quarterly, March 2015, Pages 235–250
Objectives: The gender earnings ratio for year-round full-time (YRFT) workers varies substantially across U.S. states, with a range of 24 percentage points. I examine the sources of this variation to assess to what extent it reflects compositional differences by gender that vary across state and/or nonneutral effects of state of residence on gender earnings.
Methods: Using CPS data, I estimate earnings models for men and women that incorporate state fixed effects in addition to standard human capital and demographic variables. I use those estimates to compute unadjusted and regression-adjusted estimates of the impact of state residence on the gender earnings ratio.
Results: I find that nonneutral gender-specific state effects on earnings exist even after controlling for other determinants of earnings and that state of residence appears, therefore, to have a genuine effect on the gender earnings ratio. I also find that states with particularly low overall gender earnings ratios have consistently low ratios even within quite detailed education and occupation categories.
Conclusions: Variation in the gender earnings ratio for YRFT workers across states is not simply a result of compositional differences. It is unclear, however, what policy instruments or other factors account for these differences.
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How Do Stereotypes Influence Choice?
Anne-Sophie Chaxel
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the study reported here, I tracked one process through which stereotypes affect choice. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a measurement of predecisional information distortion were used to assess the influence of the association between male gender and career on the evaluation of information related to the job performance of stereotypical targets (male) and nonstereotypical targets (female). When the IAT revealed a strong association between male gender and career and the installed leader in the choice process was a stereotypical target, decision makers supported the leader with more proleader distortion; when the IAT revealed a strong association between male gender and career and the installed leader in the choice process was a nonstereotypical target, decision makers supported the trailer with less antitrailer distortion. A stronger association between male gender and career therefore resulted in an upward shift of the evaluation related to the stereotypical target (both as a trailer and a leader), which subsequently biased choice.
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Unbuttoned: The Interaction Between Provocativeness of Female Work Attire and Occupational Status
Neil Howlett et al.
Sex Roles, February 2015, Pages 105-116
Abstract:
Gender-biased standards in United Kingdom (UK) workplaces continue to exist. Women experience gender discrimination in judgements of competence, even by other women. Clothing cues can subtly influence professional perceptions of women. The aim of this study was to investigate how minor manipulations to female office clothing affect the judgements of competence of them by other UK females and to examine whether such effects differ with occupational status. One group of female university students (n = 54) and one group of employed females (n = 90), all from London and the East of England, rated images of faceless female targets, on a global competence measure derived from six competence ratings (of intelligence, confidence, trustworthiness, responsibility, authority, and organisation). The dress style was conservative but varied slightly by skirt length and the number of buttons unfastened on a blouse. The female targets were ascribed different occupational roles, varying by status (high – senior manager, or low - receptionist). Participants viewed the images for a maximum of 5 s before rating them. Overall participants rated the senior manager less favourably when her clothing was more provocative, but more favourably when dressed more conservatively (longer skirt, buttoned up blouse). This interaction between clothing and status was not present for the receptionist. Employed participants also rated females lower than did student participants. We conclude that even subtle changes to clothing style can contribute towards negative impressions of the competence of women who hold higher status positions in a UK cultural context.
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The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: A 30-year analysis
David Miller & Jonathan Wai
Frontiers in Psychology, February 2015
Abstract:
For decades, research and public discourse about gender and science have often assumed that women are more likely than men to “leak” from the science pipeline at multiple points after entering college. We used retrospective longitudinal methods to investigate how accurately this “leaky pipeline” metaphor has described the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the U.S. since the 1970s. Among STEM bachelor’s degree earners in the 1970s and 1980s, women were less likely than men to later earn a STEM Ph.D. However, this gender difference closed in the 1990s. Qualitatively similar trends were found across STEM disciplines. The leaky pipeline metaphor therefore partially explains historical gender differences in the U.S., but no longer describes current gender differences in the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in STEM. The results help constrain theories about women’s underrepresentation in STEM. Overall, these results point to the need to understand gender differences at the bachelor’s level and below to understand women’s representation in STEM at the Ph.D. level and above. Consistent with trends at the bachelor’s level, women’s representation at the Ph.D. level has been recently declining for the first time in over 40 years.
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The gender wage gap among PhDs in the UK
Ute Schulze
Cambridge Journal of Economics, March 2015, Pages 599-629
Abstract:
This article analyses the gender wage gap (GWG) among PhD graduates in the UK 42 months after their graduation in 2004–5. We find a sizeable overall GWG of 19 log percentage points, which is explained by a large wage premium for men outside academia compared to women and men in academia. The GWG in academia is small in comparison. Whilst the GWG outside academia is very high six months after graduation and remains largely unaltered, the GWG inside academia doubles in the following three years. The Oaxaca decomposition suggests that for this relatively homogeneous group the GWG cannot be explained by differences in endowments (university and employment characteristics). We find stark differences in wage patterns between the fields of study and a strongly increasing coefficient effect for higher quantiles.
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The Effect of Stereotype Threat on Performance of a Rhythmic Motor Skill
Meghan Huber et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many studies using cognitive tasks have found that stereotype threat, or concern about confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group, debilitates performance. The few studies that documented similar effects on sensorimotor performance have used only relatively coarse measures to quantify performance. This study tested the effect of stereotype threat on a rhythmic ball bouncing task, where previous analyses of the task dynamics afforded more detailed quantification of the effect of threat on motor control. In this task, novices hit the ball with positive racket acceleration, indicative of unstable performance. With practice, they learn to stabilize error by changing their ball-racket impact from positive to negative acceleration. Results showed that for novices, stereotype threat potentiated hitting the ball with positive racket acceleration, leading to poorer performance of stigmatized females. However, when the threat manipulation was delivered after having acquired some skill, reflected by negative racket acceleration, the stigmatized females performed better. These findings are consistent with the mere effort account that argues that stereotype threat potentiates the most likely response on the given task. The study also demonstrates the value of identifying the control mechanisms through which stereotype threat has its effects on outcome measures.
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Engineering Exchanges: Daily Social Identity Threat Predicts Burnout Among Female Engineers
William Hall, Toni Schmader & Elizabeth Croft
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Efforts to promote women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) require a clearer understanding of the experience of social identity threat outside academic contexts. Although social identity threat has been widely studied among students, very little research has examined how the phenomenon occurs naturalistically among working professionals in ways that could undermine productivity and well-being. The present research employed daily diary methodology to examine conversations with colleagues as triggers of social identity threat among a sample of 44 male and 52 female working engineers. Results of multilevel modeling revealed that (1) women (but not men) reported greater daily experiences of social identity threat on days when their conversations with male (but not female) colleagues cued feelings of incompetence and a lack of acceptance, and (2) these daily fluctuations of social identity threat predicted daily levels of mental exhaustion and psychological burnout. The implications for social identity threat in working professionals are discussed.