You Go Girl
Robert Jensen
Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do labor market opportunities for women affect marriage and fertility decisions? We provided three years of recruiting services to help young women in randomly selected rural Indian villages get jobs in the business process outsourcing industry. Because the industry was so new at the time of the study, there was almost no awareness of these jobs, allowing us in effect to exogenously increase women's labor force opportunities from the perspective of rural households. We find that young women in treatment villages were significantly less likely to get married or have children during this period, choosing instead to enter the labor market or obtain more schooling or postschool training. Women also report wanting to have fewer children and to work more steadily throughout their lifetime, consistent with increased aspirations for a career.
----------------------
Reagan's "Gender Gap" Strategy and the Limitations of Free-Market Feminism
Marisa Chappell
Journal of Policy History, Winter 2012, Pages 115-134
"In late November 1982, presidential aide Lee Atwater forwarded to chief of staff James Baker a report warning about 'one of the most severe challenges facing the [Reagan] administration' in the coming year, one that 'could lock the GOP into permanent minority status.' He was referring to the 'gender gap': women had voted for Reagan in significantly lower proportions than men, Reagan's approval lagged among women, and pundits credited women voters with several Democratic victories in the 1982 midterm elections. Polls also showed potential presidential contenders for 1984 running 'substantially better among women than men in trial heats with President Reagan.' Pollster Ronald Hinckley counseled that 'continued growth of the gender gap...could cause serious trouble for Republicans in 1984,' while California congresswoman Bobbie Felder warned that the gender gap could prove 'disastrous.' Media analysts contributed to Republican alarm. Adam Clymer speculated in the New York Times that the gender gap 'may influence American life in the 1980s as much as the civil rights revolution did in the 1960s'...Analysis of the Reagan administration's response to the gender gap not only illuminates the influence of second-wave feminism but also suggests that gender played a more complicated role in conservative politics than many scholars have contended...The administration ultimately blamed the gender gap on women's changing economic role: their growing rate of labor market participation and their economic vulnerability amid the collapse of the family wage system. It hoped to address the problem in a manner consistent 'with the basic principles of the Reagan philosophy, e.g. reduced federal spending [and] reduced tax and regulatory burdens.' Hewing to the narrowest interpretation of liberal feminism, the administration promised that formal legal equity and a growing economy would ensure equal economic opportunity."
----------------------
Wei Wei et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies have shown that female children, on average, consistently outperform male children in arithmetic. In the research reported here, 1,556 pupils (8 to 11 years of age) from urban and rural regions in the greater Beijing area completed 10 cognitive tasks. Results showed that girls outperformed boys in arithmetic tasks (i.e., simple subtraction, complex multiplication), as well as in numerosity-comparison, number-comparison, number-series-completion, choice reaction time, and word-rhyming tasks. Boys outperformed girls in a mental rotation task. Controlling for scores on the word-rhyming task eliminated gender differences in arithmetic, whereas controlling for scores on numerical-processing tasks (number comparison, numerosity estimation, numerosity comparison, and number-series completion) and general cognitive tasks (choice reaction time, Raven's Progressive Matrices, and mental rotation) did not. These results suggest that girls' advantage in arithmetic is likely due to their advantage in language processing.
----------------------
Why do women opt out? Sense of belonging and women's representation in mathematics
Catherine Good, Aneeta Rattan & Carol Dweck
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sense of belonging to math - one's feelings of membership and acceptance in the math domain - was established as a new and an important factor in the representation gap between males and females in math. First, a new scale of sense of belonging to math was created and validated, and was found to predict unique variance in college students' intent to pursue math in the future (Studies 1-2). Second, in a longitudinal study of calculus students (Study 3), students' perceptions of 2 factors in their math environment - the message that math ability is a fixed trait and the stereotype that women have less of this ability than men - worked together to erode women's, but not men's, sense of belonging in math. Their lowered sense of belonging, in turn, mediated women's desire to pursue math in the future and their math grades. Interestingly, the message that math ability could be acquired protected women from negative stereotypes, allowing them to maintain a high sense of belonging in math and the intention to pursue math in the future.
----------------------
Reducing the sex difference in math anxiety: The role of spatial processing ability
Erin Maloney et al.
Learning and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Decades of research have demonstrated that women experience higher rates of math anxiety - that is, negative affect when performing tasks involving numerical and mathematical skill - than men. Researchers have largely attributed this sex difference in math anxiety to factors such as social stereotypes and propensity to report anxiety. Here we provide the first evidence that the sex difference in math anxiety may be due in part to sex differences in spatial processing ability. In Study 1, undergraduate students completed questionnaires assessing their level of math anxiety and their aptitude and preference for processing spatial configurations and schematic images. The results support the hypothesis that the relation between sex and math anxiety is mediated by spatial processing ability. In Study 2, we replicate these results with a more diverse sample of adults. Implications for the prevention and remediation of math anxiety and math anxiety-related achievement deficits are discussed.
----------------------
Occupational mobility of American women: Compositional and structural changes, 1980-2007
Hadas Mandel
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, March 2012, Pages 5-16
Abstract:
In this paper, I document trends in women's occupational mobility between 1980 and 2007 in the U.S labor market, and link these trends to two distinct sources: compositional and structural changes. In this context, compositional changes refers to the over-time trends in the distributions of men and women in the occupational wage hierarchy, while structural changes are the trends in the relative standing of occupations in the wage hierarchy over time. The findings provide empirical evidence for both processes, indicating that the impressive upward occupational mobility of American women is a consequence not only of their increased access to highly paid occupations, but also of the higher wage increments in their typical occupational profiles relative to men's - a structural change not often acknowledged by sociologists.
----------------------
Getinet Astatike Haile
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper attempts to establish empirically the link between workplace gender diversity and employee job-related well-being in Britain. Using nationally representative linked employer-employee data and accounting for unobserved workplace heterogeneity the paper finds gender diversity to be associated with lower employee well-being for women. Workplace gender equality policies and practices are not found to ameliorate this finding.
----------------------
Jennifer Hunt et al.
NBER Working Paper, March 2012
Abstract:
We investigate women's underrepresentation among holders of commercialized patents: only 5.5% of holders of such patents are female. Using the National Survey of College Graduates 2003, we find only 7% of the gap is accounted for by women's lower probability of holding any science or engineering degree, because women with such a degree are scarcely more likely to patent than women without. Differences among those without a science or engineering degree account for 15%, while 78% is accounted for by differences among those with a science or engineering degree. For the latter group, we find that women's underrepresentation in engineering and in jobs involving development and design explain much of the gap; closing it would increase U.S. GDP per capita by 2.7%.
----------------------
Resisting the Enforcement of Sexual Harassment Law
Justine Tinkler
Law & Social Inquiry, Winter 2012, Pages 1-24
Abstract:
Most people in the United States believe that sexual harassment should be illegal and that enforcement is necessary. In spite of such widespread support for antiharassment regulations, sexual harassment policy training provokes backlash and has been shown to activate traditional gender stereotypes. Using in-depth interviews and participant observations of sexual harassment policy training sessions, this study uncovers the micro-level mechanisms that underlie ambivalence about the enforcement of sexual harassment law. I find that while the different locations of men and women in the status hierarchy lead to different manifestations of resistance, gender stereotypes are used to buttress perceptions that sexual harassment laws threaten norms of interaction and status positions that men and women have an interest in maintaining. The research has implications for understanding the role of law in social change, legal compliance, and the potential/limits of law for reducing inequality.
----------------------
Sex differences in spatial cognition among Hadza foragers
Elizabeth Cashdan et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper describes sex differences in spatial competencies among the Hadza, a mobile hunter-gatherer population in Tanzania. It addresses the following questions: (a) Is the usual male advantage in Euclidean spatial abilities found in this population, where both women and men are highly mobile? (b) Do Hadza women have better object location memory than men, as the gathering hypothesis predicts? (c) Do women who are nominated by others as being good at finding bushfoods excel at the object location memory task? We tested object location memory with a version of the memory game using cards of local plants and animals. This allowed us to also ask whether women and men would have better spatial memory for the plant and animal cards, respectively. We found that Hadza men were significantly better than women in three tests of spatial ability: the water-level test, targeting, and the ability to point accurately to distant locations (the latter only in the less mobile groups). There was a trend toward a male advantage at the object location memory task, in contrast to results found previously in nonforaging populations, and women's performance at the task deteriorated with age, while that of men did not. The women who were nominated by peers as being good at finding bushfoods were consistently older women. We discuss the probable hormonal causes and functional consequences of age changes in the spatial competencies of female foragers.
----------------------
Jennifer Prewitt-Freilino, Andrew Caswell & Emmi Laakso
Sex Roles, February 2012, Pages 268-281
Abstract:
Feminists have long argued that sexist language can have real world consequences for gender relations and the relative status of men and women, and recent research suggests that grammatical gender can shape how people interpret the world around them along gender lines (Boroditsky 2009). Although others have theorized about the connection between grammatical gender in language and societal gender equality (Stahlberg et al. 2007), the current work tests this link empirically by examining differences in gender equality between countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless language systems. Of the 111 countries investigated, our findings suggest that countries where gendered languages are spoken evidence less gender equality compared to countries with other grammatical gender systems. Furthermore, countries where natural gender languages are spoken demonstrate greater gender equality, which may be due to the ease of creating gender symmetric revisions to instances of sexist language.
----------------------
Political regimes and the family: How sex-role attitudes continue to differ in reunified Germany
Stefan Bauernschuster & Helmut Rainer
Journal of Population Economics, December 2011, Pages 5-27
Abstract:
We exploit the German separation and later reunification to investigate whether political regimes can shape attitudes about appropriate roles for women in the family and the labor market. During the divided years, East German institutions encouraged female employment, while the West German system deterred women, in particular mothers, from full-time employment. Our results show that East Germans are significantly more likely to hold egalitarian sex-role attitudes than West Germans. Despite a scenario of partial policy convergence after reunification, we find no evidence for a convergence process in gender attitudes. Indeed, if anything, the gap in attitudes rather increased.
----------------------
The benefits of emotional expression for math performance
Kathleen Burns & Stacy Friedman
Cognition & Emotion, February 2012, Pages 245-251
Abstract:
This study investigated the effects of emotional expression on actual and perceived math performance. Female participants were either asked to express their emotions or given no special instructions before taking a math test under stereotype threat or no stereotype threat conditions. Participants in the emotional expression condition performed better on the math test than participants in the control condition. Under stereotype threat, participants in the emotional expression condition believed they performed better on the math test. Emotional expression appears not only to have health benefits (e.g., Pennebaker, 1997), but academic benefits as well, including for stereotyped threatened individuals.
----------------------
Gifted Girls and Nonmathematical Aspirations: A Longitudinal Case Study of Two Gifted Korean Girls
Kyeong Hwa Lee & Bharath Sriraman
Gifted Child Quarterly, January 2012, Pages 3-14
Abstract:
In this longitudinal study of two gifted Korean girls, experiences with early admittance into a gifted program are charted alongside their family and societal experiences that ultimately influenced their career choices in nonmathematical fields. The 8-year-long qualitative study involved extensive interviews with the two gifted girls and their parents to determine factors that led to their choice of a nonmathematical area of specialization in spite of early identification and support of their mathematical talent. Using tenets of qualitative inquiry to code the longitudinal data, the authors identified three main factors that contributed to these career choices, which are presented in the form of narratives. One of the startling findings of this study, contrary to the literature in gifted education research, is that the two girls' early experiences with gifted education kept them from choosing careers related to mathematics. The article also narrates the enculturation of mathematically gifted girls in Korea that leads to nonmathematical career aspirations.
----------------------
Reducing stereotype threat in order to facilitate learning
Kathryn Boucher et al.
European Journal of Social Psychology, March 2012, Pages 174-179
Abstract:
Recent stereotype threat research has demonstrated that negative stereotypes about women's math ability can impair their mathematical learning. This experiment extends this research by examining whether presenting "gender fair" information can reduce learning decrements (on a focal and transfer task) and if the timing of this information matters. Women (N = 140) and men (N = 60) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: control, stereotype threat only, stereotype threat removed before learning, and stereotype threat removed after learning. Compared with women in the control condition and women who had stereotype threat removed before learning, learning and transfer were poorer for women in the stereotype threat only condition and women who had stereotype threat removed after learning but before learning assessment. Men's learning and transfer were unaffected by condition. These findings suggest that a manipulation that can reduce performance deficits can also reduce learning decrements if it is presented before learning occurs.
----------------------
Exploring Bias in Math Teachers' Perceptions of Students' Ability by Gender and Race/Ethnicity
Catherine Riegle-Crumb & Melissa Humphries
Gender & Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study explores whether gender stereotypes about math ability shape high school teachers' assessments of the students with whom they interact daily, resulting in the presence of conditional bias. It builds on theories of intersectionality by exploring teachers' perceptions of students in different gender and racial/ethnic subgroups and advances the literature on the salience of gender across contexts by considering variation across levels of math course-taking in the academic hierarchy. Analyses of nationally representative data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS) reveal that disparities in teachers' perceptions of ability that favored white males over minority students of both genders are explained away by student achievement in the form of test scores and grades. However, we find evidence of a consistent bias against white females, which although relatively small in magnitude, suggests that teachers hold the belief that math is just easier for white males than it is for white females. In addition, we find some evidence of variation across course level contexts with regard to bias. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for research on the construction of gender inequality.
----------------------
Gender and the Choice of a Science Career: The Impact of Social Support and Possible Selves
Sarah Buday, Jayne Stake & Zoë Peterson
Sex Roles, February 2012, Pages 197-209
Abstract:
This study examined the relationships among perceived social support, beliefs about how one would fare in a science career, and perceptions and choice of a career in science. Participants were 48 men and 33 women from the Midwestern United States who had been identified as gifted in mathematics and science and participated in a high school science enrichment program. They ranged in age from 24 to 28 years old, and the sample was predominantly White (83.3%). Participants completed an online measure approximately 10 years after the program ended examining their sources of support and beliefs about the self as a scientist to see how these variables influence perceptions of a science career and actual career. We expected that the relationship between perceived support from people and current job held would be mediated by participants' beliefs about their personal life as a scientist in the future. Similarly, we expected that the relationship between a perceived supportive environment and having a science career would be mediated by participants' beliefs about their career as a scientist in the future. Findings indicated that social support contributed directly to men's and women's ability to envision themselves in a future science career, which, in turn, predicted their interest in and motivation for a science career. No significant gender differences were found in the predictors of men's and women's perceptions and choice of a science career. Implications for recruitment of students into scientific majors and careers are discussed.
----------------------
Patricia Barreto et al.
Psychophysiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Participants were presented an easy or difficult mental addition task and led to believe that they could win a traditionally masculine incentive by meeting a certain performance standard. As expected, blood pressure and heart rate responses during the work period were stronger under difficult conditions than easy ones among men but low under both difficulty conditions among women. Findings support the suggestion from a conceptual analysis grounded in motivation intensity theory that gender differences in cardiovascular response could be partially understood in terms of effort processes that occur where men and women place different value on available performance incentives.
----------------------
Masters of our time: Impatience and self-control in high-level chess games
Patrik Gränsmark
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper presents empirical findings on gender differences in time preference and inconsistency based on international, high-level chess panel data with a large number of observations, including a control for ability. Due to the time constraint in chess, it is possible to study performance and choices related to time preferences. The results suggest that men play shorter games on average and pay a higher price to end the game sooner. They also perform worse in shorter game compared to women but better in longer games. Furthermore, women perform worse in time pressure (the 40th move time control). The results are consistent with the interpretation that men are more impatient (with a lower discount factor) but also more inconsistent in the sense that they tend to be too impatient. Women, on the other hand, are more inconsistent as they tend to over-consume reflection time in the beginning, leading to time pressure later.
----------------------
George-Levi Gayle & Limor Golan
Review of Economic Studies, January 2012, Pages 227-267
Abstract:
This paper addresses two questions: What accounts for the gender gap in labour-market outcomes? What are the driving forces behind the changes in the gender labour-market outcomes over the period 1968-1997? It formulates a dynamic general equilibrium model of labour supply, occupational sorting, and human-capital accumulation in which gender discrimination and an earnings gap arise endogenously. It uses this model to quantify the driving forces behind the decline in the gender earnings gap and the increase in female labour-force participation, the proportion of women working in professional occupations, and hours worked. It finds that labour-market experience is the most important factor explaining the gender earnings gap. In addition, statistical discrimination accounts for a large fraction of the observed gender earnings gap and its decline. It also finds that a large increase in aggregate productivity in professional occupations plays a major role in the increase in female labour-force participation, number of hours worked, and the proportion of females working in professional occupations. Although of less importance, demographic changes account for a substantial part of the increase in female labour-force participation and hours worked, whereas home production technology shocks do not.
----------------------
Implicit Science Stereotypes Mediate the Relationship between Gender and Academic Participation
Kristin Lane, Jin Goh & Erin Driver-Linn
Sex Roles, February 2012, Pages 220-234
Abstract:
While the gender gap in mathematics and science has narrowed, men pursue these fields at a higher rate than women. In this study, 165 men and women at a university in the northeastern United States completed implicit and explicit measures of science stereotypes (association between male and science, relative to female and humanities), and gender identity (association between the concept "self" and one's own gender, relative to the concept "other" and the other gender), and reported plans to pursue science-oriented and humanities-oriented academic programs and careers. Although men were more likely than women to plan to pursue science, this gap in students' intentions was completely accounted for by implicit stereotypes. Moreover, implicit gender identity moderated the relationship between women's stereotypes and their academic plans, such that implicit stereotypes only predicted plans for women who strongly implicitly identified as female. These findings illustrate how an understanding of implicit cognitions can illuminate between-group disparities as well as within-group variability in science pursuit.
----------------------
What Explains the Gender Gap in Financial Literacy? The Role of Household Decision Making
Raquel Fonseca et al.
Journal of Consumer Affairs, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using newly collected data from the RAND American Life Panel, we examine potential explanations for the gender gap in financial literacy, including the role of marriage and who within a couple makes the financial decisions. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition reveals the majority of the gender gap in financial literacy is not explained by differences in the characteristics of men and women - but rather differences in coefficients, or how literacy is produced. We find that financial decision making of couples is not centralized in one spouse although it is sensitive to the relative education level of spouses.
----------------------
Charisma, Status, and Gender in Groups With and Without Gurus
John Levi Martin, Tod Van Gunten & Benjamin Zablocki
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, March 2012, Pages 20-41
Abstract:
A number of studies have noted that small religious groups with charismatic leaders seem to have different gender dynamics than do groups without. We argue that the presence of such a leader changes what charisma "means" in such a group. Without such a leader, strong personalities may appear charismatic and lead to positions of high status - and such dynamics historically have tended to be associated with a positional advantage to males. With such a leader, however, charisma is more likely to be compatible with receptivity and decoupled from gender characteristics that tend to disadvantage women, leading charismatic women to have greater status than they would otherwise have.
----------------------
The One-Child Policy and Gender Equality in Education in China: Evidence from Household Data
Ming-Hsuan Lee
Journal of Family and Economic Issues, March 2012, Pages 41-52
Abstract:
This paper uses individual-level data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey and examines the impact of the one-child policy on gender equality in education in China. The results showed children in one-child households enjoyed significantly improved opportunities for education compared to children inside multiple-child households. The improvement for girls was larger than that of boys. In addition, we found no difference in years of schooling between only-child boys and only-child girls, whereas the gap between boys and girls inside multiple-child households remained significant. In particular, years of schooling for girls having male sibling(s) were 0.62 years lower than that of girls having female sibling(s). These findings suggest the one-child policy inadvertently contributed to greater educational gender equality in China.
----------------------
Gender Earnings Differences in China: Base Pay, Performance Pay, and Total Pay
Lin Xiu & Morley Gunderson
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We utilize a data set that has not been used in literature - the Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China (LHSCCC) - to provide new evidence on male-female pay differences in China. The data set not only enables us to control for a wide range of pay-determining characteristics but also is the first to enable an analysis of the different components of pay (e.g., base pay and performance pay) as well as for total pay. We find: (1) Women receive about three-quarters of male pay for each of the dimensions of base pay, performance pay, and total pay, before adjusting for the effect of different pay-determining factors; (2) Approximately two-thirds of the gap reflect the fact that females tend to be paid less than males for the same wage-determining characteristics (often labeled as discrimination), while about one-third reflects the fact that males have endowments or characteristics that tend to be associated with higher pay, especially supervisory responsibilities, general labor market experience, occupational skills, education, and membership in the Communist party; (3) Marriage has a large positive effect on the earnings of women in China (and none for men), but childcare responsibilities for children under the age of 6 have a large negative effect on the earnings of women although these are offset almost completely if an elder family member is present, highlighting that childcare responsibilities disproportionately fall on women unless an elder family member is present; (4) Pay premiums for higher level skills and higher supervisory ranks are remarkably small for both males and especially females; (5) With respect to the unexplained or "discriminatory" portion of the gap, females get a huge pay penalty for simply being female, but a substantial portion of this gets offset by the higher pay premium they receive for such factors as Han ethnicity, being married, and education. This suggests that discrimination tends to occur in the form of a pay penalty for simply being female and not from lower returns to the same endowments of pay-determining characteristics.