Working Girls
Richard Fox & Jennifer Lawless
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Based on the second wave of the Citizen Political Ambition Panel Study, we provide the first thorough analysis of how gender affects women and men's efficacy to run for office. Our findings reveal that, despite comparable credentials, backgrounds, and experiences, accomplished women are substantially less likely than similarly situated men to perceive themselves as qualified to seek office. Importantly, women and men rely on the same factors when evaluating themselves as candidates, but women are less likely than men to believe they meet these criteria. Not only are women more likely than men to doubt that they have skills and traits necessary for electoral politics, but they are also more likely to doubt their abilities to engage in campaign mechanics. These findings are critical because the perceptual differences we uncover account for much of the gender gap in potential candidates' self-efficacy and ultimately hinder women's prospects for political equality.
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Elevating Women's Voices in Congress: Speech Participation in the House of Representatives
Kathryn Pearson & Logan Dancey
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The authors analyze gender differences in members' speech participation on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Speeches increase members' visibility and voice in the legislative process, providing opportunities for members to highlight their policy knowledge, constituents' concerns, and partisan commitments. The authors hypothesize that women's underrepresentation, coupled with the related challenges that female legislators face in a predominantly male institution, motivates congresswomen of both parties to speak at greater rates than congressmen. Analyzing over ten thousand floor speeches during the 103rd and 109th Congresses, the authors find strong support for their hypothesis, demonstrating that congresswomen's participation in legislative debate increases their visibility and enhances women's substantive representation.
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Cultural Foundations of Tokenism: Evidence from the Leveraged Buyout Industry
Catherine Turco
American Sociological Review, December 2010, Pages 894-913
Abstract:
Existing explanations of tokenism predict similar experiences for all numerically small, low-status groups. These explanations, however, cannot account for variation in the experiences of different low-status minority groups within the same setting. This article develops a theory of tokenism that explains such variation. Drawing on 117 interviews in the leveraged buyout industry (LBO) and a comparison of the differing experiences of female and African American male tokens in that setting, I argue that tokenism is contingent on the local cultural context in which it is embedded. Specifically, I identify two elements of an occupation's culture - its hierarchy of cultural resources and its image of the ideal worker - that can specify some status characteristics as more relevant to and incompatible with the occupation's work than others. In LBO, the industry values cultural resources that, on average, women lack but men possess, and the ideal worker is defined such that it directly conflicts with cultural beliefs about motherhood. Consequently, in this context, gender is a more relevant status characteristic for exclusion than is race, and female tokens are differentially disadvantaged. In addition to revising received wisdom about tokenism, this study integrates and advances social psychological and cultural theories of exclusion by deepening our understanding of the role of cultural resources and schemas in occupational inequality.
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Reducing the Gender Achievement Gap in College Science: A Classroom Study of Values Affirmation
Akira Miyake et al.
Science, 26 November 2010, Pages 1234-1237
Abstract:
In many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, women are outperformed by men in test scores, jeopardizing their success in science-oriented courses and careers. The current study tested the effectiveness of a psychological intervention, called values affirmation, in reducing the gender achievement gap in a college-level introductory physics class. In this randomized double-blind study, 399 students either wrote about their most important values or not, twice at the beginning of the 15-week course. Values affirmation reduced the male-female performance and learning difference substantially and elevated women's modal grades from the C to B range. Benefits were strongest for women who tended to endorse the stereotype that men do better than women in physics. A brief psychological intervention may be a promising way to address the gender gap in science performance and learning.
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Jeffrey Flory, Andreas Leibbrandt & John List
NBER Working Paper, November 2010
Abstract:
Recently an important line of research using laboratory experiments has provided a new potential reason for why we observe gender imbalances in labor markets: men are more competitively inclined than women. Whether, and to what extent, such preferences yield differences in naturally-occurring labor market outcomes remains an open issue. We address this question by exploring job-entry decisions in a natural field experiment where we randomized nearly 7,000 interested job-seekers into different compensation regimes. By varying the role that individual competition plays in setting the wage, we are able to explore whether competition, by itself, can cause differential job entry. The data highlight the power of the compensation regime in that women disproportionately shy away from competitive work settings. Yet, there are important factors that attenuate the gender differences, including whether the job is performed in teams, whether the job task is female-oriented, and the local labor market.
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Reference Points in Men's and Women's Judgments of Progress Toward Gender Equality
Richard Paul Eibach & Joyce Ehrlinger
Sex Roles, December 2010, Pages 882-893
Abstract:
Men rate progress toward gender equality more favorably than do women. Across two studies with U.S. undergraduate samples, we explore whether this difference in perceived progress stems from a gender difference in chosen reference points. Using ANOVA and regression, we demonstrate that men (n = 33) assess progress relative to the past more than to the goal of full equality. In contrast, women (n = 46) assess progress relative to full equality as much as to the past. As a result, current progress seems more substantial to men than to women. Experimental manipulation of reference points led men (n = 60) and women (n = 60) to adopt the same reference point and, consequently, to offer similar assessments of progress.
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Tough and Tender: Embodied Categorization of Gender
Michael Slepian, Max Weisbuch, Nicholas Rule & Nalini Ambady
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Emerging evidence has shown that human thought can be embodied within physical sensations and actions. Indeed, abstract concepts such as morality, time, and interpersonal warmth can be based on metaphors that are grounded in bodily experiences (e.g., physical temperature can signal interpersonal warmth). We hypothesized that social-category knowledge is similarly embodied, and we tested this hypothesis by examining a sensory metaphor related to categorical judgments of gender. We chose the dimension of "toughness" (ranging from tough to tender), which is often used to characterize differences between males and females. Across two studies, the proprioceptive experience of toughness (vs. tenderness) was manipulated as participants categorized sex-ambiguous faces as male or female. Two different manipulations of proprioceptive toughness predictably biased the categorization of faces toward "male." These findings suggest that social-category knowledge is at least partially embodied.
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Incumbent Responsiveness to Female Challengers
Jennifer Lucas
Politics & Policy, December 2010, Pages 1113-1134
Abstract:
How do congressional incumbents respond to challengers, particularly female challengers? This article extends recent research on the effect of congressional challengers on legislative agenda setting by analyzing the symbolic effect of a female challenger on bill sponsorship and cosponsorship of women's issue legislation. The results indicate incumbents who ran against female challengers in the previous election are more likely to respond to that constituency through their legislative activities. However, in practice, there may be few significant policy effects, as incumbents challenged by female opponents are more likely to cosponsor, rather than sponsor, women's issue legislation.
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Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap
Scott Carrell, Marianne Page & James West
Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2010, Pages 1101-1144
Abstract:
Why aren't there more women in science? This paper begins to shed light on this question by exploiting data from the U.S. Air Force Academy, where students are randomly assigned to professors for a wide variety of mandatory standardized courses. We focus on the role of professor gender. Our results suggest that although professor gender has little impact on male students, it has a powerful effect on female students' performance in math and science classes, and high-performing female students' likelihood of taking future math and science courses, and graduating with a STEM degree. The estimates are largest for students whose SAT math scores are in the top 5% of the national distribution. The gender gap in course grades and STEM majors is eradicated when high-performing female students are assigned to female professors in mandatory introductory math and science coursework.
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New trends in gender and mathematics performance: A meta-analysis
Sara Lindberg, Janet Shibley Hyde, Jennifer Petersen & Marcia Linn
Psychological Bulletin, November 2010, Pages 1123-1135
Abstract:
In this article, we use meta-analysis to analyze gender differences in recent studies of mathematics performance. First, we meta-analyzed data from 242 studies published between 1990 and 2007, representing the testing of 1,286,350 people. Overall, d = 0.05, indicating no gender difference, and variance ratio = 1.08, indicating nearly equal male and female variances. Second, we analyzed data from large data sets based on probability sampling of U.S. adolescents over the past 20 years: the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Effect sizes for the gender difference ranged between -0.15 and +0.22. Variance ratios ranged from 0.88 to 1.34. Taken together, these findings support the view that males and females perform similarly in mathematics.
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Gender inequalities in the college pipeline
William Carbonaro, Brandy Ellison & Elizabeth Covay
Social Science Research, January 2011, Pages 120-135
Abstract:
In this paper, we present a comprehensive framework for understanding gender inequality in baccalaureate degree attainment. Our "college pipeline" model addresses two main shortcomings in prior research. First, we examine multiple outcomes and stages in the pipeline that lead to four-year college entry and completion. Second, we examine multiple different pathways that students can pursue in attaining a four-year degree. Our findings indicate that females enjoy a cumulative advantage over males in the pursuit of a baccalaureate degree, but with two important exceptions. First, although females are more likely apply to college at the end of high school, they are also more likely to terminate their schooling in a two-year college than comparable males. Second, females who make an on-time transition into a four-year college experience the greatest advantages over males, and females who delay entering the college pipeline actually do no better than males in attaining a bachelor's degree.
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Melissa Hodges & Michelle Budig
Gender & Society, December 2010, Pages 717-745
Abstract:
Using the 1979-2006 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we investigate how the earnings bonus for fatherhood varies by characteristics associated with hegemonic masculinity in the American workplace: heterosexual marital status, professional/managerial status, educational attainment, skill demands of jobs, and race/ethnicity. We find the earnings bonus for fatherhood persists after controlling for an array of differences, including human capital, labor supply, family structure, and wives' employment status. Moreover, consistent with predictions from the theory of hegemonic masculinity within bureaucratic organizations, the fatherhood bonus is significantly larger for men with other markers of workplace hegemonic masculinity. Men who are white, married, in households with a traditional gender division of labor, college graduates, professional/managerial workers and whose jobs emphasize cognitive skills and deemphasize physical strength receive the largest fatherhood earnings bonuses.
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Who gets the carrot and who gets the stick? Evidence of gender disparities in executive remuneration
Clara Kulich, Grzegorz Trojanowski, Michelle Ryan, Alexander Haslam & Luc Renneboog
Strategic Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper offers a new explanation of the gender pay gap in leadership positions by examining the relationship between managerial bonuses and company performance. Drawing on findings of gender studies, agency theory, and the leadership literature, we argue that the gender pay gap is a context-specific phenomenon that results partly from the fact that company performance has a moderating impact on pay inequalities. Employing a matched sample of 192 female and male executive directors of U.K.-listed firms, we corroborate the existence of the gender pay disparities in corporate boardrooms. In line with our theoretical predictions, we find that bonuses awarded to men are not only larger than those allocated to women, but also that managerial compensation of male executive directors is much more performance-sensitive than that of female executives. The contribution of attributional and expectancy-related dynamics to these patterns is highlighted in line with previous work on gender stereotypes and implicit leadership theories such as the romance of leadership. Gender differences in risk taking and confidence are also considered as potential explanations for the observed pay disparities. The implications of organizations' indifference to women's performance are examined in relation to issues surrounding the recognition and retention of female talent.
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Evidence of Shifting Standards in Judgments of Male and Female Parents' Job-Related Ability
Kathleen Fuegen & Nicole Endicott
Current Research in Social Psychology, 2010
Abstract:
We tested the hypothesis, derived from the shifting standards model of stereotyping, that parenthood would polarize judgments of men's and women's job-related ability. One hundred thirty-five attorneys evaluated the résumé of a recent law school graduate. The résumé depicted the graduate as male or female and as either single or married with two young children. We found that a mother was held to a stricter standard for hiring than either a father or a woman without children. Results suggest earlier research conducted with undergraduates generalizes to professionals (Correll, Benard, & Paik, 2007; Fuegen, Biernat, Haines, & Deaux, 2004).
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Gender differences in competitiveness: Empirical evidence from professional distance running
Bernd Frick
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
A large body of literature documents the existence of a considerable and persistent gender gap in competitiveness. Using longitudinal data from professional distance running covering a period of nearly 40 years (1973-2009) I first confirm the findings of most previous studies by demonstrating that on average the women's races were - for most years - indeed less competitive than the men's contests. Closer inspection of the data, however, reveals that the women's races over distances with large amounts of prize money and/or prestige at stake (5,000 m track, 10,000 m road, half marathon, and marathon) have always been particularly "balanced". Moreover, although it still exists, the gender gap has considerably narrowed over the years. These findings are not compatible with the hypothesis that gender differences in competitiveness reflect evolved biological differences and/or psychological predispositions. It is, however, compatible with two other (complementary rather than substitute) hypotheses: Due to changing socio-cultural conditions boys and girls are today socialized similarly in many parts of the world and due to the increasing returns to success (i.e. identical prize money levels and distributions) women are nowadays motivated to train as hard as comparably talented men.
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James Wolf
Computers in Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using data from the Google Online Marketing Challenge participant survey, we reexamined the notion that women have a universal preference for group work. Our data suggest that there are gender differences in respondents' answers to group-related questions. However, our analysis suggests that - in most cases - these differences are accounted for by the tendency of males to have greater confidence in their Internet-related skills than females. For the most part, our results are consistent with expectations. That is, males, or more specifically those with greater confidence in their technical skills, are more likely to prefer working alone on difficult tasks or tasks in which the needed information is spread across several sources (e.g., the Internet, journals, and books). When asked about a generic project, however, the results contradicted expectations, indicating that women are more likely to prefer working alone. More importantly, the data suggest that confidence in Internet skills also plays a role in explaining this counter-intuitive result. That is, females with low confidence in their skills prefer to work in groups, while those with greater confidence are more independent. Finally, female participants, of all confidence levels, reported that their groups were less cooperative during the Challenge.
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Meet the new boss...same as the old boss? Female supervisors and subordinate career prospects
David Maume
Social Science Research, January 2011, Pages 287-298
Abstract:
Whereas prior research has focused on women's access to managerial authority, an equally important question is the effect on subordinates' careers when they report to a female boss. One line of thought suggests that female bosses act as change agents by fostering the careers of female subordinates, whereas the cog in the machine perspective suggests that female bosses either willingly or are constrained to promote men's careers. Using data from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce, analytic models of subordinates' perceived job-related support from supervisors and advancement prospects were developed. Results were consistent with the cog in the machine perspective in that in contrast to women, men received more job-related support and were more optimistic about their careers when they reported to a female supervisor. Yet, given the paucity of research on this topic, more research (especially longitudinal studies) is needed to fully understand how supervisors affect subordinates' careers.
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Nicholas Wolfinger, Marc Goulden & Mary Ann Mason
Journal of Family Issues, December 2010, Pages 1652-1670
Abstract:
The authors use data from the 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Sample to examine the likelihood of a birth event, defined as the household presence of a child younger than 2 years, for male and female professionals. Physicians have the highest rate of birth events, followed in order by attorneys and academics. Within each profession men have more birth events than women. For men, occupational variation in birth events can be explained by marital status, income, and spousal employment. These factors only partially account for occupational differences in birth events for women.
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Richard Lynn, Hsin-Yi Chen & Yung-Hua Chen
Journal of Biosocial Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Data for Raven's Progressive Matrices are reported for a sample of 6290 6- to 17-year-olds in Taiwan. The Taiwanese obtained a mean IQ of 109.5, in relation to a British mean of 100. There was no difference in mean scores of boys and girls at age 7 years. At age 10 years girls obtained significantly higher scores than boys, and at ages 13 and 16 years boys obtained significantly higher scores than girls. There was no sex difference in variance at age 7 years. At ages 10, 13 and 16 years variance was significantly greater in boys.
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Psychological aspects of the integration of women into combat roles
Ricardo Tarrasch, Orit Lurie, Dan Moran & Ran Yanovich
Personality and Individual Differences, January 2011, Pages 305-309
Abstract:
Successfully integrating women into army combat roles can be a challenge. This study aimed to identify the factors that allow women to integrate efficiently into combat units. We compared women and men in a gender-integrated combat unit with non-combat women soldiers in a non-integrated unit. A sample of 450 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers participated in the study during their four-month military basic training (BT). The subjects completed trait and state personality questionnaires and underwent medical examinations. Female soldiers in both combat and non-combat units displayed higher stress levels than male soldiers. Female soldiers in combat roles were more similar to their male counterparts than to female non-combat soldiers in several of the psychological measures used, but felt ‘more commitment and challenge'. Combat women sought more medical assistance than non-combat women. We address the difficulties that women in combat roles face and discuss the influence of mediating psychological factors on their perceived stress and its influences.