Disparate Diversity
Do White Women Gain Status for Engaging in Anti-black Racism at Work? An Experimental Examination of Status Conferral
Jennifer Berdahl & Barnini Bhattacharyya
Journal of Business Ethics, September 2024, Pages 839–858
Abstract:
Businesses often attempt to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by showcasing women in their leadership ranks, most of whom are white. Yet research has shown that organizations confer status and power to women who engage in sexist behavior, which undermines DEI efforts. We sought to examine whether women who engage in racist behavior are also conferred relative status at work. Drawing on theory and research on organizational culture and intersectionality, we predicted that a white woman who expresses anti-Black racism is conferred more status in the workplace than a white woman who does not. A pilot study (N = 30) confirmed that making an anti-Black racist comment at work was judged to be more offensive than making no comment, but only for a white man, not a white woman. Study 1 (N = 330) found that a white woman who made an anti-Black racist comment at work was conferred higher status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man, with perceived offensiveness mediating these effects. Study 2 (N = 235) revealed that a white woman who made an anti-racist/pro-Black Lives Matter comment was conferred lower status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man. Finally, Study 3 (N = 295) showed that people who endorse racist and sexist beliefs confer more status to a white man than to a white woman regardless of speech, but that people low in racism and sexism confer the highest status to a white woman who engages in anti-Black racist speech. These studies suggest that white women are rewarded for expressing support for beliefs that mirror systemic inequality in the corporate world. We discuss implications for business ethics and directions for future research.
Strategically Diverse: An Intersectional Analysis of Enrollments at U.S. Law Schools
Nicholas Bowman et al.
Research in Higher Education, September 2024, Pages 1163–1184
Abstract:
Legal education scholars have argued that law schools strategically use Students of Color for enrollment management purposes; they can admit more to meet admission targets, but they should not enroll so many that they need to open new course sections. As law school applications decline, we analyze enrollment panel data reported to the American Bar Association. We find that examining the intersection of race and gender matters for understanding the ways that law schools are strategic about diversity in enrollment management. For each group (e.g., Black women, White men), law schools balance higher enrollment in one year with lower incoming enrollment of that same group in the subsequent year, thereby working against the racial diversification of legal education and the legal profession. In some instances, higher enrollment in one group (e.g., Hispanic women) also leads to higher enrollment in the subsequent year among incoming students with the same race but different gender (e.g., Hispanic men). This analytical approach -- informed by intersectionality -- reveals that differential race x gender patterns would be overlooked in analyses that solely focused on race while not considering gender. Moreover, the results are generally robust across models examining both the number and percentage representation of incoming students. Finally, we find evidence that these balancing dynamics are sometimes more pronounced at law schools with higher median LSAT scores, which are typically most selective. We discuss implications for equity in legal education and future research directions for graduate and professional education.
Intersectionality: Affirmative Action with Multidimensional Identities
Jean-Paul Carvalho, Bary Pradelski & Cole Williams
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studying the design of affirmative action policies when identities are multidimensional, we provide a formal demonstration of the importance of intersectionality. Prevailing affirmative action policies are based only on one identity dimension (e.g., race, gender, socioeconomic class). We find that any such nonintersectional policy can almost never achieve a representative outcome. In fact, nonintersectional policies often increase the underrepresentation of underrepresented groups in a manner undetected by standard measures. Examples based on race and gender reveal significant hidden inequality arising from nonintersectional policies. We show how to construct intersectional policies that achieve proportional representation.
The Gender-Equality Paradox in Intraindividual Academic Strengths: A Cross-Temporal Analysis
Marco Balducci et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Independent of overall achievement, girls’ intraindividual academic strength is typically reading, whereas boys’ strength is typically mathematics or science. Sex differences in intraindividual strengths are associated with educational and occupational sex disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Paradoxically, these sex differences are larger in more gender-equal countries, but the stability of this paradox is debated. We assessed the stability of the gender-equality paradox in intraindividual strengths, and its relation to wealth, by analyzing the academic achievement of nearly 2.5 million adolescents across 85 countries and regions in five waves (from 2006 to 2018) of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Girls’ intraindividual strength in reading and boys’ strength in mathematics and science were stable across countries and waves. Boys’ advantage in science as an intraindividual strength was larger in more gender-equal countries, whereas girls’ advantage in reading was larger in wealthier countries. The results have implications for reducing sex disparities in STEM fields.
Do Higher Tipped Minimum Wages Reduce Race, Ethnic, or Gender Earnings Gaps for Restaurant Workers?
David Neumark & Emma Wohl
NBER Working Paper, September 2024
Abstract:
One of the arguments increasingly made to support large minimum wage increases is that they decrease wage or earnings gaps for minorities or women (e.g., Derenoncourt and Montialoux, 2021). The argument is often made with particular reference to higher tipped minimum wages for restaurant workers, because of discrimination in tipping that is immune to equal pay policy requirements. Of course, even if higher tipped minimum wages reduce hourly pay differences between groups, increases in tipped minimum wages can reduce employment or hours among restaurant workers (Neumark and Yen, 2023), and these effects could differ by race and gender, so implications for hourly earnings do not necessarily extend to overall earnings. We estimate the impact of variation in tipped minimum wages -- or, equivalently, tip credits -- on earnings of restaurant workers (which ignores employment variation but incorporates hours variation). We find that tipped minimum wages raise hourly earnings of women, but not of Blacks or Hispanics. But tipped minimum wages generally do not raise weekly earnings for these groups (because of hours declines for women). In contrast, regular minimum wages boost hourly and weekly earnings of all three groups of restaurant workers, with the effects arising from non-tipped workers.
Busing to Opportunity? The Impacts of the METCO Voluntary School Desegregation Program on Urban Students of Color
Elizabeth Setren
NBER Working Paper, August 2024
Abstract:
School assignment policies are a key lever to increase access to high performing schools and to promote racial and socioeconomic integration. For over 50 years, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) has bussed students of color from Boston, Massachusetts to relatively wealthier and predominantly White suburbs. Using a combination of digitized historical records and administrative data, I analyze the short and long run effects of attending a high-performing suburban school for applicants to the METCO program. I compare those with and without offers to enroll in suburban schools. I use a two-stage least squares approach that utilizes the waitlist assignment priorities and controls for a rich set of characteristics from birth records and application data. Attending a suburban school boosts 10th grade Math and English test scores by 0.13 and 0.21 standard deviations respectively. The program reduces dropout rates by 75 percent and increases on-time high school graduation by 13 percentage points. The suburban schools increase four-year college aspirations by 17 percentage points and enrollment by 21 percentage points. Participation results in a 12 percentage point increase in four-year college graduation rates. Enrollment increases average earnings at age 35 by $16,250. Evidence of tracking to lower performing classes in the suburban schools suggests these effects could be larger with access to more advanced coursework. Effects are strongest for students whose parents did not graduate college.
Does the salience of race mitigate gaps in disciplinary outcomes? Evidence from school fights
Kyle Raze & Glen Waddell
Economics of Education Review, October 2024
Abstract:
Racial gaps in the adjudication of student misconduct are well documented -- relative to white students engaged in similar behaviors, students of color are more likely to be disciplined and the discipline they receive tends to be harsher. We show that racial disparities in the adjudication of fighting infractions depend on the racial composition of incidents. While significant disparities exist within schools, we find little if any within-incident disparities. Examining disparities across fights, we show that students of color are punished more severely, on average, as fights involving only students of color are punished more severely than fights involving only white students. Moreover, students of color in multi-race fights receive punishments that are statistically indistinguishable from those assigned to white students in fights involving only white students, suggesting that disparities arise from the differential adjudication of incidents by their racial composition rather than from the differential adjudication of students within the same incident.
Critique of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Diversity Claims
John Gentry
Econ Journal Watch, September 2024, Pages 251-273
Abstract:
‘Diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) initiatives have become widespread in the U.S. government, including the intelligence community (IC). Senior IC leaders claim that DEI policies improve the operational performance of agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency. This article criticizes these claims, shows them to be unsupported by evidence and simply skimpy, and goes further by briefly explaining how DEI policies damage the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies in five major ways. This study of the impact of DEI on a major component of U.S. national security establishment complements studies of the effects of DEI on businesses and universities.