She's got skills
The Impact of Menstrual Cycle Phase on Economic Choice and Rationality
Stephanie Lazzaro et al.
PLoS ONE, January 2016
Abstract:
It is well known that hormones affect both brain and behavior, but less is known about the extent to which hormones affect economic decision-making. Numerous studies demonstrate gender differences in attitudes to risk and loss in financial decision-making, often finding that women are more loss and risk averse than men. It is unclear what drives these effects and whether cyclically varying hormonal differences between men and women contribute to differences in economic preferences. We focus here on how economic rationality and preferences change as a function of menstrual cycle phase in women. We tested adherence to the Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preference (GARP), the standard test of economic rationality. If choices satisfy GARP then there exists a well-behaved utility function that the subject’s decisions maximize. We also examined whether risk attitudes and loss aversion change as a function of cycle phase. We found that, despite large fluctuations in hormone levels, women are as technically rational in their choice behavior as their male counterparts at all phases of the menstrual cycle. However, women are more likely to choose risky options that can lead to potential losses while ovulating; during ovulation women are less loss averse than men and therefore more economically rational than men in this regard. These findings may have market-level implications: ovulating women more effectively maximize expected value than do other groups.
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Prenatal Testosterone and the Earnings of Men and Women
Anne Gielen, Jessica Holmes & Caitlin Myers
Journal of Human Resources, Winter 2016, Pages 30-61
Abstract:
Testosterone, which induces sexual differentiation of the male fetus, is believed to transfer from males to their littermates in placental mammals. Among humans, individuals with a male twin have been found to exhibit greater masculinization of sexually dimorphic attributes relative to those with a female twin. We therefore regard twinning as a plausible natural experiment to test the link between prenatal exposure to testosterone and labor market earnings. For men, the results suggest positive returns to testosterone exposure. For women, however, the results indicate that prenatal testosterone does not generate higher earnings and may even be associated with modest declines.
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Henning Finseraas et al.
European Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study discrimination among recruits in the Norwegian Armed Forces during boot camp. In a vignette experiment female candidates are perceived as less suited to be squad leaders than their identical male counterparts. Adding positive information leads to higher evaluations of the candidates, but does not reduce the amount of discrimination. However, randomized intense collaborative exposure to female colleagues reduces discriminatory attitudes: Male soldiers who were randomly assigned to share room and work in a squad with female soldiers during the recruit period do not discriminate in the vignette experiment.
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Unequal Hard Times: The Influence of the Great Recession on Gender Bias in Entrepreneurial Financing
Sarah Thébaud & Amanda Sharkey
Sociological Science, January 2016
Abstract:
Prior work finds mixed evidence of gender bias in lenders’ willingness to approve loans to entrepreneurs during normal macroeconomic conditions. However, various theories predict that gender bias is more likely to manifest when there is greater uncertainty or when decision-makers’ choices are under greater scrutiny from others. Such conditions characterized the lending market in the recent economic downturn. This article draws on an analysis of panel data from the Kauffman Firm Survey to investigate how the Great Recession affected the gender gap in entrepreneurial access to financing, net of individual and firm-level characteristics. Consistent with predictions, we find that women-led firms were significantly more likely than men-led firms to encounter difficulty in acquiring funding when small-business lending contracted in 2009 and 2010. We assess the consistency of our results with two different theories of bias or discrimination. Our findings shed light on mechanisms that may contribute to disadvantages for women entrepreneurs and, more broadly, highlight how the effects of ascribed status characteristics (e.g., gender) on economic decision-making may vary systematically with macroeconomic conditions.
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Julia Bear & Benjamin Collier
Sex Roles, forthcoming
Abstract:
A comprehensive survey conducted in 2008 found that only 13 % of Wikipedia contributors are women. We proposed that masculine norms for behavior in Wikipedia, which may be further exacerbated by the disinhibiting nature of an online, anonymous environment, lead to different psychological experiences for women and men, which, in turn, explain gender differences in contribution behavior. We hypothesized that, among a sample of individuals who occasionally contribute to Wikipedia, women would report less confidence in their expertise, more discomfort with editing others’ work, and more negative responses to critical feedback compared to men, all of which are crucial aspects of contributing to Wikipedia. We also hypothesized that gender differences in these psychological experiences would explain women’s lower contribution rate compared to men in this sample. We analyzed data from a sample of 1,598 individuals in the United States who completed the English version of an international survey of Wikipedia users and readers conducted in 2008 and who reported being occasional contributors. Significant gender differences were found in confidence in expertise, discomfort with editing, and response to critical feedback. Women reported less confidence in their expertise, expressed greater discomfort with editing (which typically involves conflict) and reported more negative responses to critical feedback compared to men. Mediation analyses revealed that confidence in expertise and discomfort with editing partially mediated the gender difference in number of articles edited, the standard measure for contribution to Wikipedia. Implications for the gender gap in Wikipedia and in organizations more generally are discussed.
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Males Under-Estimate Academic Performance of Their Female Peers in Undergraduate Biology Classrooms
Daniel Grunspan et al.
PLoS ONE, February 2016
Abstract:
Women who start college in one of the natural or physical sciences leave in greater proportions than their male peers. The reasons for this difference are complex, and one possible contributing factor is the social environment women experience in the classroom. Using social network analysis, we explore how gender influences the confidence that college-level biology students have in each other’s mastery of biology. Results reveal that males are more likely than females to be named by peers as being knowledgeable about the course content. This effect increases as the term progresses, and persists even after controlling for class performance and outspokenness. The bias in nominations is specifically due to males over-nominating their male peers relative to their performance. The over-nomination of male peers is commensurate with an overestimation of male grades by 0.57 points on a 4 point grade scale, indicating a strong male bias among males when assessing their classmates. Females, in contrast, nominated equitably based on student performance rather than gender, suggesting they lacked gender biases in filling out these surveys. These trends persist across eleven surveys taken in three different iterations of the same Biology course. In every class, the most renowned students are always male. This favoring of males by peers could influence student self-confidence, and thus persistence in this STEM discipline.
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School Quality and the Gender Gap in Educational Achievement
David Autor et al.
NBER Working Paper, January 2016
Abstract:
Recent evidence indicates that boys and girls are differently affected by the quantity and quality of family inputs received in childhood. We assess whether this is also true for schooling inputs. Using matched Florida birth and school administrative records, we estimate the causal effect of school quality on the gender gap in educational outcomes by contrasting opposite-sex siblings who attend the same sets of schools — thereby purging family heterogeneity — and leveraging within-family variation in school quality arising from family moves. Investigating middle school test scores, absences and suspensions, we find that boys benefit more than girls from cumulative exposure to higher quality schools.
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Demographic Characteristics of High School Math and Science Teachers and Girls’ Success in STEM
Elizabeth Stearns et al.
Social Problems, Winter 2016, Pages 87-110
Abstract:
Given the prestige and compensation of science and math-related occupations, the underrepresentation of women and people of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors (STEM) perpetuates entrenched economic and social inequities. Explanations for this underrepresentation have largely focused on individual characteristics, including uneven academic preparation, as well as institutional factors at the college level. In this article, we focus instead on high schools. We highlight the influence of the intersection between race and gender of female math and science teachers on students’ decisions to major in STEM fields. Theoretically, this article extends the political science concept of representative bureaucracy to the issue of women’s and disadvantaged minorities’ underrepresentation in STEM majors. We analyze longitudinal data from public school students in North Carolina to test whether organizational demography of high school math and science faculty has an association with college major choice and graduation. Using hierarchical probit models with an instrumental-variable approach, we find that young white women are more likely to major in STEM fields and to graduate with STEM degrees when they come from high schools with higher proportions of female math and science teachers, irrespective of the race of the teacher. At the same time, these teachers do not depress young white or African American men’s chances of majoring in STEM. Results for African American women are less conclusive, highlighting the limitations of their small sample size.
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Sex and sex-role differences in specific cognitive abilities
David Reilly, David Neumann & Glenda Andrews
Intelligence, January–February 2016, Pages 147–158
Abstract:
Sex differences in cognitive abilities are a controversial but actively researched topic. The present study examined whether sex-role identity mediates the relationship between sex and sex-typed cognitive abilities. Three hundred nine participants (105 males and 204 females) were tested on a range of visuospatial and language tasks under laboratory conditions. Participants also completed measures of sex-role identity, used to classify them into masculine, feminine, androgynous and undifferentiated groups. While sex differences were found for some but not all measures, significant sex-role differences were found for all spatial and language measures with the exception of a novel 2D Mental Rotation Task. Masculine sex-roles partially mediated the relationship between sex and a composite measure of spatial ability, while feminine sex-roles fully mediated the relationship between sex and a composite measure of language ability. These results suggest that sex-role identity may have greater utility in explaining individual differences in cognitive performance than biological sex alone.
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Layne Vashro, Lace Padilla & Elizabeth Cashdan
Human Nature, March 2016, Pages 16-34
Abstract:
The fertility and parental care hypothesis interprets sex differences in some spatial-cognitive tasks as an adaptive mechanism to suppress women’s travel. In particular, the hypothesis argues that estrogens constrain travel during key reproductive periods by depressing women’s spatial-cognitive ability. Limiting travel reduces exposure to the dangers and caloric costs of navigating long distances into unfamiliar environments. Our study evaluates a collection of predictions drawn from the fertility and parental care hypothesis among the Twe and Himba people living in a remote region of Namibia. We find that nursing mothers travel more than women at any other stage of their reproductive career. This challenges the assumption that women limit travel during vulnerable and energetically demanding reproductive periods. In addition, we join previous studies in identifying a relationship between spatial ability and traveling among men, but not women. If spatial ability does not influence travel, hormonally induced changes in spatial ability cannot be used as a mechanism to reduce travel. Instead, it appears the fitness consequences of men’s travel is a more likely target for adaptive explanations of the sex differences in spatial ability, navigation, and range size.
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No Sex or Age Difference in Dead-Reckoning Ability among Tsimane Forager-Horticulturalists
Benjamin Trumble et al.
Human Nature, March 2016, Pages 51-67
Abstract:
Sex differences in reproductive strategy and the sexual division of labor resulted in selection for and maintenance of sexual dimorphism across a wide range of characteristics, including body size, hormonal physiology, behavior, and perhaps spatial abilities. In laboratory tasks among undergraduates there is a general male advantage for navigational and mental-rotation tasks, whereas studies find female advantage for remembering item locations in complex arrays and the locations of plant foods. Adaptive explanations of sex differences in these spatial abilities have focused on patterns of differential mate search and routine participation in distinct subsistence behaviors. The few studies to date of spatial ability in nonindustrial populations practicing subsistence lifestyles, or across a wider age range, find inconsistent results. Here we examine sex- and age-based variation in one kind of spatial ability related to navigation, dead-reckoning, among Tsimane forager horticulturalists living in lowland Bolivia. Seventy-three participants (38 male) aged 6–82 years pointed a handheld global positioning system (GPS) unit toward the two nearest communities and the more distant market town. We find no evidence of sex differences in dead reckoning (p = 0.47), nor do we find any evidence of age-related decline in dead-reckoning accuracy (p = 0.28). Participants were significantly more accurate at pointing toward the market town than toward the two nearest villages despite its being significantly farther away than the two nearest communities. Although Tsimane do show sexual dimorphism in foraging tasks, Tsimane women have extensive daily and lifetime travel, and the local environment lacks directional cues that typically enhance male navigation. This study raises the possibility that greater similarity in mobility patterns because of overlapping subsistence strategies and activities may result in convergence of some male and female navigation abilities.
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Sex Differences in Exploration Behavior and the Relationship to Harm Avoidance
Kyle Gagnon et al.
Human Nature, March 2016, Pages 82-97
Abstract:
Venturing into novel terrain poses physical risks to a female and her offspring. Females have a greater tendency to avoid physical harm, while males tend to have larger range sizes and often outperform females in navigation-related tasks. Given this backdrop, we expected that females would explore a novel environment with more caution than males, and that more-cautious exploration would negatively affect navigation performance. Participants explored a novel, large-scale, virtual environment in search of five objects, pointed in the direction of each object from the origin, and then navigated back to the objects. We found that females demonstrated more caution while exploring as reflected in the increased amounts of pausing and revisiting of previously traversed locations. In addition, more pausing and revisiting behaviors led to degradation in navigation performance. Finally, individual levels of trait harm avoidance were positively associated with the amount of revisiting behavior during exploration. These findings support the idea that the fitness costs associated with long-distance travel may encourage females to take a more cautious approach to spatial exploration, and that this caution may partially explain the sex differences in navigation performance.
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Reading the Face of a Leader: Women with Low Facial Masculinity Are Perceived as Competitive
Raphael Silberzahn & Jochen Menges
Academy of Management Discoveries, forthcoming
Abstract:
In competitive settings, people prefer leaders with masculine faces. But is facial masculinity a trait that is similarly desired in men and women leaders? Across three studies, we discovered that people indeed prefer men and women leaders who have faces with masculine traits. But surprisingly we find that people also prefer women with low facial masculinity as leaders in competitive contexts (Study 1). Our findings indicate that low facial masculinity in women, but not in men is perceived to indicate competitiveness (Study 2). Thus, in contrast to men, women leaders who rate high in facial masculinity as well as those low in facial masculinity are both selected as leaders in competitive contexts. Indeed, among CEOs of S&P 500 companies we find a greater range of facial masculinity among women CEOs than among men CEOs (Study 3). Our results suggest that traits of facial masculinity in men and women are interpreted differently. Low facial masculinity in women is linked to competitiveness and not only to cooperativeness as suggested by prior research.
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Catherine Riegle-Crumb, Barbara King & Chelsea Moore
Sex Roles, forthcoming
Abstract:
Drawing on prior theoretical and empirical research on gender segregation within educational fields as well as occupations, we examine the pathways of college students who at least initially embark on a gender-atypical path. Specifically, we explore whether women who enter fields that are male-dominated are more likely to switch fields than their female peers who have chosen other fields, as well as whether men who enter female-dominated majors are more likely to subsequently switch fields than their male peers who have chosen a more normative field. We utilize a sample of 3702 students from a nationally representative dataset on U.S. undergraduates, the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS 2004/09). Logistic regression models examine the likelihood that students switch majors, controlling for students’ social and academic background. Results reveal different patterns for men and women. Men who enter a female-dominated major are significantly more likely to switch majors than their male peers in other majors. By contrast, women in male-dominated fields are not more likely to switch fields compared to their female peers in other fields. The results are robust to supplementary analyses that include alternative specifications of the independent and dependent variables. The implications of our findings for the maintenance of gendered occupational segregation are discussed.
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The gender wage gap in highly prestigious occupations: A case study of Swedish medical doctors
Charlotta Magnusson
Work Employment & Society, February 2016, Pages 40-58
Abstract:
The gender wage gap within a highly prestigious occupation, the medical profession, is investigated both longitudinally and cross-sectionally using Swedish administrative data. This is done by investigating: to what extent the gender wage gap among physicians varies between fields of medicine (within-occupation segregation) and across family status; whether there is an association between parenthood and wages among physicians and, if so, whether there is a gender difference in this association; and changes in the gender wage gap among physicians over time. The results indicate a large overall gender wage difference for medical doctors. Even when gender differences in specialization are taken into account, men have higher wages than women do. For both men and women physicians, there is a positive association between parenthood and wages. The longitudinal analyses show that the gender wage gap among physicians was greater in 2007 than in 1975.
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The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries
Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo
NBER Working Paper, January 2016
Abstract:
Women in developed economies have made major inroads in labor markets throughout the past century, but remaining gender differences in pay and employment seem remarkably persistent. This paper documents long-run trends in female employment, working hours and relative wages for a wide cross-section of developed economies. It reviews existing work on the factors driving gender convergence, and novel perspectives on remaining gender gaps. The paper finally emphasizes the interplay between gender trends and the evolution of the industry structure. Based on a shift-share decomposition, it shows that the growth in the service share can explain at least half of the overall variation in female hours, both over time and across countries.
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When women emerge as leaders: Effects of extraversion and gender composition in groups
James Lemoine, Ishani Aggarwal & Laurens Bujold Steed
Leadership Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Focusing on the gender of emergent leaders in initially leaderless groups, we explore contextual factors that may influence when women are likely to emerge as leaders. We take a multi-level perspective to understand and unpack the complex interplay between individual gender, group gender composition, and group personality composition. Drawing from perspectives such as social role theory and the social identity model of leadership, we theorize as to when women are most likely to emerge as leaders, even in groups composed predominantly of men. Results from two studies indicated that individual level gender does not interact with group gender composition to predict leadership emergence, suggesting that groups with more men do not disproportionally choose men as leaders, and groups with more women similarly do not tend to have women emerge as leaders. However, a three-way interaction consistently appeared in our studies when group-level extraversion was added to individual and group gender, in a pattern suggesting that group extraversion alters leader emergence patterns in groups with more men. Our findings demonstrate that women become more likely to emerge as leaders when their groups are both high in extraversion, and composed of more men than women. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.
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The Impact of Losing in a Competition on the Willingness to Seek Further Challenges
Thomas Buser
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do people react to setbacks and successes? I use a laboratory experiment to determine the effect of winning and losing in a competition on the willingness to seek further challenges. Participants compete in two-person tournaments in an arithmetic task and are then informed of their score and the outcome of the competition. Participants then have to decide on a performance target for a second round: the higher the target, the higher the potential reward, but participants who do not reach the target earn nothing. Conditional on the score, winning or losing is exogenous. I find that, conditional on first-round scores, losers go for a more challenging target. Losers also perform worse, leading to lower earnings and a higher probability of failure. These results are driven by gender-specific reactions to winning and losing: men react to losing by picking a more challenging target while women lower their performance. These findings could have important implications for our understanding of individual career paths. Early outcomes could alter the probability of success and failure in the long term.
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Conceptual Change in Science Is Facilitated Through Peer Collaboration for Boys but Not for Girls
Patrick Leman et al.
Child Development, January/February 2016, Pages 176–183
Abstract:
Three hundred and forty-one children (Mage = 9,0 years) engaged in a series of science tasks in collaborative, same-sex pairs or did not interact. All children who collaborated on the science tasks advanced in basic-level understanding of the relevant task (motion down an incline). However, only boys advanced in their conceptual understanding at a 3-week posttest. Discussion of concepts and procedural aspects of the task led to conceptual development for boys but not girls. Gender differences in behavioral style did not influence learning. Results are discussed in terms of the links between gender and engagement in conversations, and how gender differences in collaboration may relate to differences in participation in science.
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Backlash against male elementary educators
Corinne Moss-Racusin & Elizabeth Johnson
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigated the existence, nature, and processes underscoring backlash (social and economic penalties) against men who violate gender stereotypes by working in education, and whether backlash is exacerbated by internal (vs. external) behavioral attributions. Participants (N = 303) rated one of six applications for an elementary teaching position, identical apart from target gender and behavioral attribution type. Male applicants were rated as more likely to be gay, posing a greater safety threat, and less likeable (but not less hireable) than identical female applicants. Perceived sexuality and threat mediated target gender differences in likeability. Unexpectedly, behavioral attributions did not interact with target gender, suggesting that providing internal attributions may not exacerbate men's backlash. Implications for backlash theory and education gender disparities are discussed.