Gender Work
Do People Lead Men and Women Differently? Multimethod Evidence That Group Gender Affects Leaders’ Dominance
Holly Engstrom et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Leaders’ behavior can powerfully alter group outcomes. In a programmatic series of preregistered studies, we provide the first rigorous test of whether and why leaders behave differently toward groups of men versus women. In a within-subjects pilot study (N = 336) and in between-subjects Study 1 (N = 368), American adults said they would lead groups of men (vs. women) in a more dominant (e.g., intimidating, controlling) manner. Study 2 (N = 361) replicated this pattern and found that people lead mixed-gender groups similarly to how they lead groups of all women. In Study 3 (N = 314), coaches of boys’ (vs. girls’) sports teams -- real leaders of gender-segregated groups -- also said that they led more dominantly. In Study 4 (N = 161), students who believed that they would be leading men (vs. women) were rated by trained coders as more dominant in a videotaped introduction to their group. The pilot study and Studies 1, 2, and 4 all tested for and found evidence suggesting that the underlying mechanism was related to leaders’ stereotypes about their followers’ communion. In Study 5 (N = 844), men evaluated dominant leaders more positively than women, suggesting that followers may reinforce leaders’ tendency to lead men with more dominance. Leaders are likely to treat -- and be reinforced for treating -- groups of men in a more dominant way, with implications for group outcomes and group members’ well-being.
Competitiveness at the intersection of gender and sexual orientation
Billur Aksoy & Ian Chadd
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, May 2025
Abstract:
We study the relationship between sexual orientation, gender, and competitiveness in the United States using an online experiment. We document a novel sexual minority gap in willingness to compete, wherein gay and lesbian individuals compete less than their heterosexual counterparts. Furthermore, we find that the well-documented gender gap in competitiveness does not depend on sexual orientation: both lesbian and heterosexual women compete less than their male counterparts. Differences in competitiveness are mostly explained by differences in self-confidence, with the exception of the gender gap between lesbian and gay participants. Additionally, we study the consequences of inferring sexual orientation through associated indicators. We find that inference based on sexual attraction produces estimates similar to our main analysis based on identity; inference using sexual experience does not. Our findings highlight how the increased availability of self-reported identity data can provide new economic insights into these historically understudied populations.
Can Stereotype Reactance Prompt Women to Compete? A Field Experiment
Sophia Pink et al.
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women are consistently underrepresented in leadership roles. One contributor may be that women are generally less willing than equally-qualified men to enter competitions (e.g., for jobs or promotions). We draw from research on “stereotype reactance” -- the idea that telling people about stereotyped expectations can encourage defiance -- to propose and test whether telling women about the gender gap in competition entry can increase their willingness to compete. Our prediction contrasts with prior work on stereotype threat and descriptive norms suggesting that highlighting the gender competition gap might lead women to refrain from competing. In two incentive-compatible, preregistered online experiments, we find that informing women about the gender competition gap increases their likelihood of competing for higher pay, and this effect is mediated by stereotype reactance, consistent with our theorizing. Moreover, exposing both men and women to information about the gender competition gap closes the gap. We then test this informational intervention in a large-scale field experiment on an executive job search platform (n = 4,245), examining whether telling women about the gender competition gap increases their willingness to compete for leadership roles relative to a control message that tells them about an identity-irrelevant competition gap. We find that relative to our control message, informing women about the gender gap in willingness to compete increases submitted job applications by over 20% on the day of condition assignment. This suggests that women’s willingness to compete is affected not just by confidence, but also by cultural expectations and motivation to defy stereotypical norms.
What Is Mine Cannot Be Yours: How Zero-Sum Perceptions of Power and Status Shape Men’s Perceptions of Ingroup Harm From Women’s Hierarchical Advancement
Sonya Mishra
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although men’s support is crucial to facilitating women’s advancement within social and organizational hierarchies, research finds that men may perceive women’s hierarchical advancement as harmful to their ingroup (i.e., in zero-sum terms). Given hierarchies are composed of two distinct bases -- power (control over resources) and status (respect from others) -- it is presently unknown whether power is perceived as more zero-sum than status and whether men’s perceived ingroup harm differs depending on whether women are gaining power or status. Five preregistered studies (N = 2,899) investigate these questions and examine how perceived ingroup harm mediates downstream consequences in political and organizational domains. Power was viewed as more zero-sum than status (Study 1). Men perceived more ingroup harm from women’s gains in power versus status, while women’s perceptions of ingroup benefit did not differ across power and status (Study 2). Learning of women’s gains in power increased men’s political conservatism, serially mediated by zero-sum perceptions of hierarchy and perceived ingroup harm (Study 3). Men were less supportive of a diversity initiative framed as increasing women’s power versus status, with perceived ingroup harm again serving as the mediator (Study 4). Notably, reducing the perceived zero-sumness of the initiative eliminated the difference in ingroup harm from women’s gains in power (vs. status). Men donated less money when a nonprofit organization’s mission emphasized increasing women’s power (vs. status; Study 5). These findings advance our theoretical understanding of social hierarchies and intergroup dynamics by revealing how women’s gains in power versus status elicit resistance from men.
Discrimination, Rejection, and Job Search
Anne Boring et al.
Harvard Working Paper, February 2025
Abstract:
We investigate how candidates’ willingness to apply responds to (potential) discrimination and rejection using a simulated labor market. Past work has shown that “blinding” job applications reduces discrimination and increases the rate at which women are hired. Our study asks, how do blinding interventions impact the supply of candidates? Participants in our large online experiment are assigned to the role of either a recruiter or a candidate for a technical coding task. Candidates provide their willingness to apply for the opportunity with a non-blind resume that provides a coarse signal of their skills alongside gender and age, or a blind resume that hides the demographic information. We find that blinding applications increases the rate at which counter-stereotypical candidates apply, revealing an important channel through which blinding interventions can broaden and diversify the pool of talent. Our study goes beyond initial applications to explore the downstream effects of blinding in markets where candidates receive feedback. We ask whether rejections resulting from a blind process have a different impact than non-blind rejections. The effect could go either way: potential discrimination having a particularly discouraging effect on future application behavior, or a blind rejection instead being a stronger signal of quality and therefore inducing greater deterrence. We find support for the latter channel. Blind rejections have a larger impact on future applications than non-blind rejections, particularly for women. As a result, while blinding initially reduces age and gender gaps in willingness to apply, the supply-side benefits of blinding are more muted after a rejection. This causal evidence on the net effects of blinding advances our understanding of a practice that is gaining popularity in the field.
How Culturally Prevalent Patterns of Nonverbal Behavior Can Influence Discrimination Against Women Leaders
Sarah Ariel Lamer et al.
Psychology of Women Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
We propose that people learn biases against women leaders through patterns of nonverbal behavior depicted in media. Specifically, we hypothesized that (a) people encounter culturally prevalent patterns of nonverbal behavior that favor men leaders over women leaders and (b) seeing patterns of nonverbal behavior favoring men leaders causes people to prefer working under men than women. An analysis of nonverbal behavior directed by and at leaders in 18 popular TV shows revealed that interactions between women leaders and their subordinates were more negative than those between men leaders and their subordinates. In two experimental studies, participants (N = 193: 53% women, 47% men, 78% White, Mage = 19.5 and N = 237: 75% women, 25% men, 77% White, Mage = 18.45) exposed to this nonverbal bias favoring men (vs. a nonverbal bias favoring women) were more likely to choose to work for a White man than a White woman leader. This work has implications for understanding one mechanism through which gender stereotypes of leadership are transmitted and upheld in social groups.
Long-Term Consequences of Teaching Gender Roles: Evidence from Desegregating Industrial Arts and Home Economics in Japan
Hiromi Hará & Núria Rodríguez-Planas
Journal of Labor Economics, April 2025, Pages 349-389
Abstract:
This paper explores whether a 1990 reform that eliminated gender-segregated and gender normative industrial arts and home economics classes in Japanese junior high schools led to behavioral changes two decades later, when students were married and in their early 40s. Using a regression discontinuity design and Japanese time use data from 2016, we find that the reform narrowed gender gaps in weekend home production and job-related activities by increasing (decreasing) men’s engagement in traditionally female (male) activities, reduced the gender income gap by increasing women’s access to better jobs, delayed men’s fertility, and relaxed women’s attitudes toward traditional gender roles.
Towering Intellects? Sizing Up the Relationship Between Height and Academic Success
Stephanie Coffey & Amy Ellen Schwartz
Economics & Human Biology, May 2025
Abstract:
Do tall students do better in school? A robust literature documents higher earnings among taller people and suggests that differences in adult labor market outcomes may reflect prior differences in academic outcomes. In this paper, we use unique student-level longitudinal data from New York City (NYC) to examine the link between height and achievement, shedding light on underlying mechanisms. The centerpiece of our empirical work is a regression linking test scores to height, measured as a z-score normalized to same grade/sex peers within schools. We estimate a meaningful height gradient for both boys and girls in English Language Arts (ELA) and math achievement in all grades 3-8. Controlling for observed student characteristics, a one standard deviation (sd) increase in height for grade is associated with.03 and.039 sd higher performance in math and ELA, respectively, for boys and.034 and.04 sd in math and ELA, respectively, for girls. While the average gradient is small in magnitude, it is sufficiently large to generate meaningful differences in achievement between the tallest and shortest students. For example, the tallest 2.5% boys and girls within grade perform.18 and.194 sd better in ELA, respectively, than the shortest ones. We also find evidence that ordinal height rank relative to peers may have a small effect on ELA achievement conditional on cardinal height. Thus, there is an academic height premium for both absolute and relative height.