Reserving Time for Daddy: The Long and Short-Term Consequences of Fathers' Quotas

People often think economists only worry about inflation, interest rates, or fiscal policy, but did you ever think that economics researchers would be working on figuring out ways for couples to share child care and housework more equitably? Well, they do! In the latest edition of the HKS WAPPP Seminar, economist Ankita Patnaik, from Mathematica Policy Research, presented her work on the long term and short term effects of paternity leave on families. She is part of a group of up and coming scholars that, according to Professor Hannah Riley-Bowles, are producing research that reminds us that the topic of gender encompasses more than women; equality concerns everyone.

Patnaik began by providing an overview of encouraging trends that have emerged in recent decades. In some contexts, women have been catching up to men in the formal labor market, though pay gaps remain, and have closed gaps in realms like education. In contrast, 'care work', which includes unpaid tasks such as housework or child care in the home, is strongly characterized by sex-specialization and takes up more of women's time. In the typical household according to studies, women are assigned inflexible tasks that need to be performed regularly and at fixed times, like cooking dinner, for example. In contrast, men usually take on tasks that can be performed at any time and are not routine, like fixing various items or mowing the lawn.

These differences can hurt women at work and reduce their bargaining power within the household. They can result in lower priority assigned to women's activities outside the home. For example, researchers observe that women are more likely to quit their job in response to husband's long work hours and more likely to relocate to accommodate a partner's professional path.

Before Patnaik's research, studies had found a relationship between parental leave schemes that included a paternity leave provision and the number of men taking leave to perform childcare duties. They could not pinpoint a causal relationship though and the effect of fathers' leave on housework sharing was not clear. Her contribution provides answers to these questions by looking at a very special policy episode that happened in Canada in 2006.

Dr. Ankita Patnaik, Mathematica Policy Research

The province of Quebec put into place a parental leave scheme called QPIP Reform, which made it easier to qualify, provided more compensation, and included a five-week 'daddy-only' provision for leave in addition the mother's. Families with babies born beginning on January 1st would be eligible. This allowed Patnaik to compare eligible families with those that just missed the date and would be governed by the old scheme, which only provided with maternity and shared leave. The results are very impressive.

The likelihood that fathers would take paternity leave went up by 53 percentage points, and their leaves became three weeks longer. "Norms play a critical role", she explained. Because this policy is aimed specifically for fathers, social norms become more accepting of men leaving work to take care of a child than when the policy was shared leave. After the quota, "dads are more likely to take their leave if their brother or their boss took it", she remarked. She calls her findings "the flypaper effect", because the quotas stick to the dad's when they are directed specifically to them. Labels matter!

What is even more impressive is that she found that these five weeks of leave can have effects that are much more long lasting than could have been expected. After five years, moms in Quebec were spending an hour longer at work on average, making about $5,000 Canadian dollars more, and more likely to be working full-time. Dads were spending more time doing 'carework' and their work hours and earnings were unaffected.

Ankita Patnaik will continue to work on this issue, her findings are key to any policy maker working on closing gender gaps.

Corporate Boardrooms: Where are the Women?

Op-Ed
By Amanda Clayton, WAPPP Fellow, Postdoctoral Fellow, Free University of Berlin

During the global financial crisis, several public figures asked: would we be here if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters? This question resurfaced in late 2013 when Twitter went public with an all-male corporate board The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to wryly point out if Twitter added three women, “its board would still have as many men named Peter as women.”

The lack of women in business leadership is shocking. Despite an increase in female MBA students, women currently account for 17% of Fortune 500 board members and just 4% of CEOs.

So why include women in the boardroom? A Transparency International study notes that women tend to be less corrupt than men in business and government. Women are also more risk-adverse according to a UC Santa Barbara study.  Moreover, a Catalyst report shows that women's representation on corporate boards is associated with better financial performance.

Although encouraging, this line of research is unsettling for some gender scholars. Labeling women as more risk-adverse and less corrupt not only sets unreasonable expectations for women, but also can digress into essentialist arguments - similar to espousing men as naturally better leaders.

This issue is not about women saving Wall Street -- it's about fairness. Research presented by Shelley Correll at Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research explains how largely implicit gender biases still hold women back in the workplace. Similar research reveals that managers hire applicants they feel will be a good “cultural match” (read: white men) and, once hired, these don't leave.

The persistence of this uneven playing field recently caused Harvard Business School to seriously reevaluate its organizational culture. Similarly, ten countries have adopted quotas for women on publicly traded company boards to fast track gender equality.

What are the benefits here? A recent study in Science co-authored by WAPPP faculty affiliate, Rohini Pande, shows that seeing female leaders increases girls' career aspirations and educational attainment. That is, letting women into the boardroom not only remedies current inequalities, it encourages future generations of young women to throw their hats in the ring.

Breaking Through the Corporate Glass Ceiling

Over the last generation, women have made huge strides in the professional world. By many accounts, they account for over 60% of US college graduates. And while the economic recession harmed everyone, women have had a lower rate of unemployment than men, particularly in white collar industries, where their presence has been increasing.

But somehow, there seems to be a limit to how far they can rise---that proverbial “Glass Ceiling”. Though women are a majority in professional occupations, they’re just 4.2% of CEOs in America! Corporate boards are a whole other story.

"Progress on Gender Diversity for Corporate Boards: Are We Running in Place?"

Today’s WAPPP Seminar featured Cathy Tinsley of Georgetown University, presenting some preliminary findings from her research on Progress on Gender Diversity for Corporate Boards: Are We Running in Place?

Using a number of different laboratory experiments and statistical analyses, she and her colleagues explore the conditions under which more women might be added to corporate boards. While the research is still ongoing, some early results suggest a tendency to maintain the board's existing gender composition when members need to be replaced. Interestingly, she also saw an increase in selecting a woman for an open board seat when there were predominantly women in the candidate pool.

Of course, some of the reasons for women's representation on boards are important to note too. A Credit Suisse report issued last year found that companies with women on their board performed better than comparable companies that did not. In another report, Catalyst found that Fortune 500 companies with more women on their boards outperformed their peers on average across a series of financial indicators.

Women may be more represented on the boards of social organizations and non-profits than on of financial firms, for example. But should this be the case? Should women be represented equally simply because it’s fair and they are capable of providing the (exact) same service as men? Or because they bring something special and complementary---but essentially different---than men do?

Heroes and Sheroes - Inspiring Women's Political Participation

All of us have heroes. People we’ve seen succeed; whom we want to emulate. When we have something in common with those heroes, it’s even more inspiring: that success feels even more tangible because, “if they can do it, so can I!”

But female political heroes are unfortunately too difficult to come by. Women represent over half of the population in most countries. And when women are involved in policy-making, there are often better education, health, and economic mobility outcomes for the whole society. Yet women make up only 11% of elected political office in India, 18% in the US, and 22% in the UK and China! Getting a few more women---even by quotas---should inspire others to participate too, right?

At today’s WAPPP Seminar, Lakshmi Iyer of Harvard Business School presented her research on “Path Breakers: How Does Women’s Political Participation Respond to Electoral Success?” Professor Iyer and her colleagues look at state level elections in India to see whether simply having women candidates run and succeed affects whether more women will try to run in the future. They crunch a lot of interesting data, and conclude that there is, in fact, an increase in the number of women who run as candidates after they see other women succeed.

But in looking at some of the details, they also find that most of this increase is simply because earlier female candidates run again (rather than new women necessarily getting inspired), and that there’s no impact on whether more women will vote.

If you want to increase and sustain the number of women in higher elected office, simply encouraging quotas---a requirement on the number of women in an elected body---may not be the best way. In India, the nature of democracy may be a stranger impediment: parties tend to select candidates not based on their aptitude or ideology, but by their "winnability"---which often includes association or family connections. Leaving the process to itself, according to Professor Iyer, may not change the situation for generations.

Yet the effect of their presence---even if enforced by quotas---on policy-making may be an important factor. If the mere presence a woman on a governing body can have a tangible influence on how that organization functions and what it does, it might well be worth it, regardless of how she got there.

Empowering Afghan Women

Whispering wind skims sides of sand dunes. A young girl, maybe eight years old, is heaving yellow plastic canisters toward a clay hut. In an Afghan village, where the gray beards make all decisions, fetching water is a girl’s duty. This is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman, but one woman – MIT Professor Fotini Christia – keeps coming back. She has interviewed war lords, studied alliances of Taliban fighters, and now she is surveying villagers to evaluate the impact of the National Solidarity Program.  

The NSP is the largest development program in Afghanistan’s history and is unusually popular. Though it is funded by the World Bank and foreign governments like any other development scheme, the Afghans own the process. Afghan government administers the NSP to 29,000 villages through a system of elected local community development councils (CDCs), which decide on infrastructure projects for their community. These councils are not the usual circles of bearded men. For a village to receive aid, half of the CDC members must be women and at least one project must be targeted to women’s needs.

What is the impact of this program on women in this male-dominated society? That is one of the parameters Professor Christia is evaluating in a randomized field experiment. Because the program could not be delivered to all villages at once, she was able to select 250 villages for the treatment group and 250 similar villages for the control group. Her team of dedicated enumerators trekked to these remote villages to survey and interview residents in 2007, before projects commenced, then in 2009, and finally in 2011 when the projects were completed. The final evaluation results are not yet available, but Professor Christia shared some preliminary findings.

The most hopeful results were in relation to attitudes toward women’s civic participation, socialization and economic activity. Namely, in villages that received the NSP both men and women were more likely to say that women should have input on electing the village head and that there is at least one woman in the community who is well respected by both men and women. These villagers were also less likely to say that women should not have any decision-making roles. Moreover, women in the treatment villages were more likely to have become engaged in an income-generating activity, and to have developed support networks with each other. On the family attitude front, however, no statistically significant differences were observed with regard to women owning assets or being consulted about family spending decisions.

Changing entrenched gender roles is difficult enough at Harvard and MIT, not to mention a conservative village in the heart of a country ravaged by civil war.With that in mind, Professor Christia makes a compelling case that the NSP and the ongoing participation of women in local decisions is critical to moving Afghanistan forward. For instance, in selecting infrastructure projects for their communities, women were more likely than men to invest in wells and schools. Perhaps with a shorter distance to haul water, their daughters will be more likely to go to school.

Anya Malkov is an MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, a WAPPP Cultural Bridge Fellow, and an alumna of From Harvard Square to the Oval Office.

Gender Equality in Elected Office: Applying the Six Step Action Plan to the Egyptian Case

“A genuine academic with a real impact on practice” is how Hannah Riley-Bowles introduced Pippa Norris, the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. Professor Norris certainly lived up to this introduction, presenting the audience with a research-based framework and then making us to dig into the practice of applying it to the Egyptian case. 

The research question behind the framework is “What promotes gender equality in elected office?” The country-level data clearly shows that it is not gender-related development and not democratization, and that culture change is too slow to measure or to be an effective tool. It is institutional reforms that have impact.  The “Six Step Action Plan” hones in on the institutions and leverage points in question:

• Constitutions
• Electoral systems
• Legal quotas
• Party selection rules and procedures
•  Capacity development
• Gender-sensitive procedures in elected office

In a purely theoretical world it would be easy to insert women at each of these levels, to make all the rules women-friendly – guarantee constitutional protections, mandate quotas, provide trainings, etc. But the reality is messy and much more interesting. 

The Egyptian case study presented us with the historic, political and cultural context of a country in the midst of a constitutional debate. It forced us to think strategically and to get specific about the types of interventions (if any) we would pursue at each of the six steps. 

Egyptian Women MP's Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

Lively discussion sprung forth from all corners of the room. An Egyptian student insisted that it matters more that the right women are in office, not just more women, explaining how highly conservative women can set back the cause. Groups argued about the best level on which to focus the advocacy. Debate ensued over the timing of intervention and the key actors to engage, and there was no agreement on quotas versus reserved seats as the optimal legal structure. We ran out of time.

“So what is the solution?” I asked half kidding and half frustrated. Of course, there is no solution that we can simply think up here in Cambridge. Still, the exercise demonstrated that the Six Step Action Plan – a conceptual framework grounded in research – can be a powerful tool for advocates shaping the debate on gender equality. And with requests pouring in from all corners of the world to translate and to adapt this framework, it is no wonder that Pippa Norris is an academic with a real impact on practice. 

Bhutan: The Case for Quotas

By James Walsh, WAPPP Summer Intern

Yesterday, with my voice competing with the clanger of the monsoon rain on the tin roof of the Planning Division’s office, I presented my final report to the Gross National Happiness Commission. Twenty-five people were in attendance at the meeting. More important than the number however, was its composition. It included key decision makers from the GNHC: Department Heads and the Secretary of the Commission – one of the most respected leaders in Bhutan’s civil service. After weeks of worrying whether my time here would leave any lasting impression, this was my opportunity to play a small role in influencing the people who drive the country’s policy agenda.

When I first arrived, I had been asked by the Secretary to work on designing a framework for implementing policies that allowed the government to actively engage in pursuing ‘GNH Development’ (by focusing on fostering indicators like uptake of meditation and volunteering). It was important, interesting work and the Secretary had a keen interest in it – the ideal way for a student to spend an internship. After familiarizing myself both with the various dimensions of the GNH framework and the scope of the project however, I realized my work would do very little to address the growing problem of inequity faced by women Bhutan as the country modernized – something I had come to Bhutan to work on. (Gender is an important component of many aspects of GNH, but doesn’t feature strongly in others). So I decided to work on a parallel project independently, focusing specifically on empowering women in politics through the introduction of quotas. I would conduct the research, write the report and present the findings alongside the original assignment, relying on occasional advice from senior figures in the GNHC who had an interest in the area. The plan worked.

Though the issue of gender was not something that anybody had much interest in me working on here, it created by far the greatest stir of the presentation. The Secretary, who opposed the introduction of quotas (like many in the senior ranks of Bhutanese government), changed his mind on the issue. Speaking on the subject after the presentation, he described his “180 degree turn” and decided to use the report to engage the issue with members of parliament. That afternoon, I left the office triumphantly, feeling that a slight of pressure had been added to the arc of justice in Bhutan.

Continue reading...

When Affirmative Action Works. When it doesn’t.

The Woman: Johanna Mollerstrom, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Economics

The Talk: The Downside of Affirmative Action

The Question: Do quotas negatively impact group dynamics?

Discussions around quotas and affirmative action policies can polarize conversations. At their core, we find ourselves asking, “Is this a ‘fair’ way to increase representation?”

The Research from Mollerstrom finds that when groups are created via a quota system, the amount of cooperation within the group decreases. While I won’t go into the details of the study (and more research is still in progress), she essentially hypothesizes three reasons why this may happen:

1. Mood: If a person believes it is unfair for someone to be in the group, then he or she is less likely to cooperate.
2. Entitlement: If a person is in the group for reasons besides credentials or merit, then resentment may occur.
3. Punishment: If a person follows the a type of in-group-out-group bias, then he or she may favor his or her respective in-group.

While few in the United States promote the idea of a quota – the argument being that it tokenizes diversity and discredits qualifications – the current numbers are pretty stark. Only 17 percent of the US Congress is female; women constitute only 3.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs; and women hold only 16.1 percent of Fortune 500 board seats.

But globally these numbers are not much better. On average, women hold 19.5 percent of parliamentary seats and represent only 9.8 percent of board members (with this number swinging from less than 1 percent in Japan to 35.6 percent in Norway). Quotas are often discussed as an option to increase representation and parity. In 2006 Norway imposed a quota system that requires companies to have 40 percent of their board to be women. This past January, France joined them.

Is this about diversity, or how this diversity came to be?

While many are doing research in this field, the discussion around why we believe certain groups deserve representation is culturally and socially fascinating. For example, in the US, we consider the athletic quotas that stem from Title IX to be completely acceptable. Why is this? Why are we okay with some quotas, but not others?

Mollerstrom is doing more research around this question. Perhaps it’s rooted in historical legacies. Perhaps it depends on whether the environment is competitive or cooperative. Or perhaps it’s framing and relevance. Regardless, I will be interested to see what she finds next.

Melissa Sandgren is a MPP1 at the Harvard Kennedy School and a participant in WAPPP's From Harvard Square to the Oval Office program. She is also the author of the "For Struggling Boards, the Answer May Be Closer than You Think" in the 2012 Kennedy School Review.

Pande's new research shows the impact of gender quotas on girls' aspirations in India

To be a young girl in certain Indian villages now is an opportunity --- the 1993 national quota law requiring a third of local village councils to be led by women has changed the way a new generation of girls envision their future. Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, HKS and WAPPP faculty adviser, and colleagues recently published new research analyzing the impact of gender quotas on girls' aspirations in Indian villages.

The paper:
Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India (with Lori Beaman, Esther Duflo, and Petia Topolava). Sciencexpress DOI: 10.1126/science.1212382, January 12, 2012. Reprint January 25, 2012.


Media coverage:

Female politicians point the way towards equality

Financial Times

As debate rages over the use of gender quotas in the boardroom, an increasing number of countries are introducing them to further women’s representation in the political domain. While some dismiss the quota system as one that clashes with the ideals of the democratic process, there is evidence that these laws help create female role models, and improve educational and professional opportunities for young women.

In India, good things happen when women are in charge

The Globe and Mail
Rohini Pande's research shows that having women on local government dramatically changed the beliefs of young girls about what they can do with their lives.

Gender Quotas Boost Achievement for Girls, New Study Finds

January 12, 2012
By Doug Gavel
Published in the HKS News

Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor 

of Public Policy

"Our study shows that, in the Indian context, 
the positive effect of exposure to a female 
leader dominated any possible backlash, 
probably because it gave women a chance 
to demonstrate that they are capable leaders," 
writes Pande.

The use of gender quotas to achieve equal opportunity is a controversial political strategy, but one that seems to be achieving positive results in India. A new research paper co-authored by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rohini Pande finds that the system designating female leaders for selected village councils in India has resulted in substantive gains for girls in those villages -- both in terms of aspirations and educational outcomes.

"Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India" is published in the January 12th edition of the journal Science.

In their research the authors analyzed data gleaned from more than 8000 surveys of adolescents and their parents in almost 500 villages, a third of which are randomly selected to reserve a seat for a female leader, called a "Pradhan," on the village council. The data showed that, "compared to villages that were never reserved, the gender gap in aspirations closed by 25% in parents and 32% in adolescents in villages assigned to a female leader for two election cycles."

The authors also conclude that girls raised in villages with a female Pradhan were more likely to score higher in school exams than girls from other villages, while test scores for boys remained roughly the same.

"These results show that laws can help create role models by opening opportunities that were previously unavailable to a group, and this increased opportunity does not diminish the aspirations of those outside the group," the authors argue. "Our study shows that, in the Indian context, the positive effect of exposure to a female leader dominated any possible backlash, probably because it gave women a chance to demonstrate that they are capable leaders. And, perhaps most importantly, our study establishes that the role model effect reaches beyond the realm of aspirations into the concrete, with real educational and time-use impacts."

The study is co-authored by Lori Beaman, Department of Economics, Northwestern University; Esther Duflo, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Petia Topalova, International Monetary Fund.

Rohini Pande is Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research examines how the design of democratic institutions and government regulation affects policy outcomes and citizen well-being, especially in South Asia. She has taught at Yale University, MIT and Columbia.